


Wasteland Wars: Kessel Road

by Cyber_Witch



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: General Hux as Corpus Colossus, Introducing Finn as Nux, Kylo Ren as Rictus Erectus, Let's just fuck up everything, Mad Max Fury Road AU, No Force AU, Phasma as evil Imperator Furiosa, Poe is Max, Post-Apocalypse, Rey is also Max, Someone stop me, The Force is Beforetime Tech, everyone's probably a little gay, please, pure crap, subtle homoerotic undertones, this is shit, why am I doing this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-30
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-09-03 08:05:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8704324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyber_Witch/pseuds/Cyber_Witch
Summary: Rey is a lone scavenger and mechanical savant, eking an existence in the vast Badlands of the middle territories. Finn is a faceless soldier among thousands loyal to their leader to the death. When a strange child shows up with vital information contained in her eidetic memory, circumstances force them together to try and find new hope for the future of mankind.Star Wars: TFA chars reinterpreted through the filter of the Mad Max:Fury Road universe.Just a fun little experiment :)





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> About 45 years from next Wednesday, in a post-apocalyptic wasteland not so far away, mankind struggles to survive the aftermath of The Fall, and each other. Can one scrappy survivor with a haunted past, and a traitorous soldier be our only hope?

The nighttime activity of Tuanul was subdued, as some villagers prepared to settle in for the night, while others assumed their nightly watch posts. But as always, there was an undercurrent of ready tension. Poe crouched down so that he was at eye level with the child in front of him.

“I need you to listen very carefully when the History Man and I talk, Bibi. Lore is very smart, like you. And what he knows is very important. Do you understand?”

Poe placed a large hand on Bibi’s slight shoulder. She peered at him from beneath a frizzy mass of dark hair that defied all attempts to tame it. Bibi understood. She understood too much. But there was no other choice. Poe could not trust himself to remember everything with the same amount of clarity that the gifted child could.

He pulled Bibi’s small body, slight in the oversized orange and dusty white coveralls, into a hug and kissed the child’s messy crown. When all this business was finished, he would raise her properly, maybe give her a chance for a more normal childhood, away from this life of uncertainty and fear. A world where survival was more sure and one could learn for the sake of knowing. Until then, everyone had to play their part, as much as it pained him.

Back inside of the canvas hut, the old man sat before a fire, staring into the flames as if they spoke to him in a secret language. His contemplative severity dropped away when he looked up, though, and his rheumy eyes sparkled at Bibi. On his lined skin was the black inked tattoos that were the marks of a History Man. The writing was too small to read from where Poe stood, but he knew what it was. Stories. Lessons and history about the Beforetime.

Poe’s eyes immediately fell on the small leather pouch he held in his weathered, sun-mottled hand. Poe didn’t question what kind of leather it was.

“Is this the child? The Eidetic?”

“This is Bibi. My daughter.”

Lore looked down at her with solemn kindness.

“It is very nice to meet you, Bibi.”

Bibi, lacking in any semblance of care for social etiquette, even for a five-year old, went up to Lore. She reached for his short beard, giving it a quick tug as if to verify its authenticity. Lore pulled a goofy lop-sided expression, eliciting a pleased grunt from Bibi.

And then he untied the string and unfolded the pouch. It was a circle of pale leather with the cord on its perimeter. He held it toward the fire so that the etchings on its surface were visible.

Poe could see Bibi’s eyes moving over the image. After a moment, Lore closed the pouch and motioned to the dirty floor.

“Can you draw what you saw, Bibi?” he asked. “Take your time, sweet child.”

Poe couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of guilt as he watched the child trace a perfect copy of the map’s etchings on the floor with her fingertip.

 Lore didn’t need to check the map against her drawing, but he did anyway. Everything was perfect.

“She reproduced the lettering without error. Can she read?” he asked Poe. Poe shook his head. If she knew how to read, she’d never shown it, much like her apparent inability to speak words. But he knew that that mind of hers was keen and clever.

Above and around the features of Bibi’s finger drawing was lettering. Poe knew it was called Arabesh, but he had never learned how to read the ancient script.

“She was born into a hard life. She’s my little light in the dark.”

Lore nodded contemplatively while Bibi toyed with a beetle.

“I hope this can begin to set things right. Without someone to oppose them, the forces of evil will end us.”

Poe stared into the fire.

“The Valkyrie has been after this for a long time.”

Bibi shepherded the beetle toward the tent flap with painstaking care, and Lore smiled.

“The Valkyrie… I knew her before she took that title.”

Suddenly, Bibi’s back snapped straight, her head up and alert. A low gurgling growl rose in the small space. Poe rose to his feet. And then he heard it.

Distant engines.

“Our time is up,” Lore said, terse.

When Poe looked back, the leather map had been thrown into the fire, its edges already blackened and curling in the flames. Lore brushed his foot over the drawing on the floor, erasing it.

“You’ve gotta hide,” Poe said, urgent. The sounds were getting louder. He could hear shouts of alarm outside the tent.

“I’m done hiding,” Lore said, his jaw set. “Go. Keep the knowledge safe.”

Poe opened his mouth to say something else, but Bibi’s tiny hand slipped into his and he looked down at her.

Another shout outside, and then Poe was running out into the night, back to his open top dune buggy. He could see the Citadel War Party now, even spot the white-painted bodies, like ghosts in the near darkness, poised to jump out. A swarm.

He swept Bibi up into his arms and she wrapped her arms around his neck. He pushed himself harder, dodging armed villagers as they raced in the opposite direction. When he dropped her into the passenger side of the buggy, he vaulted into the driver’s seat and started up the engine.

Bursts of pistol fire sounded behind him. Stray bullets hit the ground around him. A flash of heat and light from behind made him throw himself over the child. A glancing explosion from a grenade. The engine sputtered and died out, and despite his attempts, Poe could not get it to start up.

Bibi growled, looking behind them. The white-painted bodies of the Trooper boys were headed toward him, black engine grease masks giving them a sinister, uniform look in the light of fires and explosions. Beyond them, flame-throwers ignited buildings and villagers alike and spread to everything around them.

Poe pushed Bibi’s head down and fired a couple of precise shots. The white bodies went down, but more were coming. Worse, he could see the silhouette of a command interceptor approaching the settlement’s front lines.

His eyes widened in recognition. He thought he could make out the vision of Lore walking calmly to the front as chaos erupted around him and villager clashed with the Trooper Boys.

Without wasting time, Poe leaped out of the car and circled around to pull Bibi out. He lowered himself into a crouch, his heart pounding as he met her overlarge brown eyes, stark against her brown face in the light of the flame. He touched her face, directed her to look at him, wishing he could build a shield around her and protect her from the screaming and the gunfire.

“Bibi, remember what I told you? What to do if we get separated?”

Bibi nodded, her eyes were alert, always taking in as much detail as possible, but he could see her little chest moving with her breaths, like a mouse.

“You’re a really good hider. The best. I need to you run, as far away as you can, and then hide. Can you do that for me?”

Bibi looked past the car to the endless stretches of Badlands. She nodded yes. Poe swiped the tears forming in his eyes, forcing himself to maintain a calm exterior. When she looked back at him, he smiled.

“I’ll come back for you, Bibi. I’ll find you. I promise. I’ll always find you. You hear me?”

Bibi sniffed. Poe squeezed her close, feverishly praying to whatever might hear to protect her. She was too wise for her years. He didn’t know what her life was like before he’d found her a year ago, digging up burrow lizards for food outside of his scout post. It took him two days of secret observation to find out where she’d made a nest in a cool rocky hollow. However long she’d been on her own, she’d managed to survive.

He clipped his canteen to the belt loop of her coveralls.

“Go!” he said. Bibi didn’t wait. Before he knew it, her small form was disappearing into the darkness beyond Tuanul.

\---

White-bodied Trooper Boys clashed with villagers, but it was clear who had the advantage. Not all the Trooper Boys participated in the battle gleefully. Crouched behind a rock, one Trooper whose dark skin showed through the chalky white pigment that they all wore, seemed lost as he looked at the dead comrade on the ground below him.

Wide brown eyes, framed by streaks of blood that did not belong to him, took in the battlefield around him as he held his pistol in a shaky hand, pointed harmlessly at the ground.

He couldn’t breathe. He shied away from a nearby explosion as the white bodies of his fellow Troopers were thrown away from the blast. His hands felt clammy, as though he couldn’t get them to cooperate, to tighten their hold on the trigger. In a moment of confusion, he couldn’t remember who he was supposed to shoot.

A woman, some settlement waster, collapsed a few yards from him, her back peppered by bleeding holes from shotgun pellets while the one who’d shot her whooped and reloaded. Others took gleefully to the task of melee combat with anything that could cause grievous injury or kill. The Trooper’s own knife remained strapped in his thigh holster, unused.

He watched as an old man, clothed in robes and tattooed with writing that covered every inch of exposed skin, walked calmly to the front line as his village fell around him. The Commander’s car had arrived.

“Follow up,” a senior Boy told him, clapping him on the back. The Trooper obeyed, tearing his eyes away from the imminent confrontation.

\---

When the figure leaped out of the driver’s seat of the command Interceptor, Lore stood tall. Even with the pistol at his back and the whooping, hollering Trooper Boys around him, he kept his chin high.

Dark eyes, almost black, peered at him from a pale face, framed in black wavy hair. Everything below his eyes was obscured by a mask resembling the lower half of a black skull. Tiny bird skulls strung together into a necklace adorned his otherwise bare chest. Lore looked into their tiny, hollow eyes and tried to still his frightened breaths.

“Still alive, I see,” the man said, his voice a growl, partially distorted by the mask. The tank on his back didn’t seem connected to it at all, and by the fuel lines hooked onto the hilt of the strange sword-like weapon at his side, he could see that the tank served a more sinister purpose than for breathing.

“Hope never dies. It will outlive me. And you,” Lore said, squaring his shoulders in defiance, though his eyes were weary and red from the smoke.

Behind him, a senior Trooper Boy ordered the others into a firing line, facing the huddling, crying villagers that were still alive.

A single Trooper stared, wide eyes reflecting the terror of the villagers that sobbed or begged him and the others for mercy. The blood on his face made him look more fierce than his ashen complexion might imply.

“You know why I’ve come here,” the masked man said to Lore.

“I know where you’ve come from, before you called yourself Kylo Erectus,” Lore returned without pause. Aged eyes searched the visible part of the other man’s face for some remnant of the humanity that may have once resided there. All he saw was the firelight reflecting off the hardware in his mask, seeming somehow cold.

“I know you have the map,” Kylo Erectus said. “Give it to me and I’ll repay you with a quick death.”

\---

Poe fired his pistol, took out another Trooper Boy, and then shielded himself behind a small building made of rusted aluminum siding. As he reloaded, he looked up to see Lore standing before a tall, bare-chested figure in a half-mask. He recognized the figure, and the presence of the Trooper Boy commander only made Poe reload faster.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a small gas motor revving up, followed by a burst of light coming from an object in the masked man’s grip. Poe squinted against the sight, his mouth falling open.

The masked man held a weapon the likes of which Poe’d never seen before. It looked like a flaming sword, with fuel lines connected to the tank on his back. He raised the flaming column of light, appearing as a terrible vision of divine might. In one swoop, the flaming sword came down upon the figure of Lore, which crumpled

Poe didn’t think. He charged out of cover, gun blazing, screaming, blinded by raw emotion.

In an instant, two Trooper Boys came out of nowhere and threw themselves upon him, wrestling him to the ground and ripping the gun out of his hand. When he looked up from the dirt, he could see that he’d missed his mark. Kylo Erectus had moved aside and was now looking across the battlefield at him. On the ground beside him, a Trooper Boy struggled to move, clutching the gushing bullet holes in his stomach.

By the time Poe was dragged before him, the injured Trooper lay still. Poe was shoved to his knees, but he kept his eyes up.

The lean man lowered himself into a crouch before him, waiting. Poe would not give in so easily.

“Yes?” he asked, coy.

“You have it, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry, what was that?”

“Search him,” Kylo Erectus said to the Trooper Boys holding the cocky insurgent. They were not gentle as they left no part of him untouched.

“How you doin’?” Poe asked one of them, giving him a lopsided grin. The War Boy in question, a muscular young man with makings like a skull painted in black engine grease, paid him no attention, checking the crook between his groin and upper thigh without ceremony.

“Nothing,” the Trooper Boy said.

“Put him on a tether,” Kylo replied, waving him away dismissively.

“Boss?” an important-looking woman said, coming up from behind. Her tall form was clothed in reinforced, shining chainmail, and Poe couldn’t help but stare. Her grey blue eyes peered at him from the solid black grease markings from the center of her shaved crown to beneath her eyes. Poe was dwarfed by her impressive frame, which was only made greater by the oversized tyre-rubber pauldrons that were strapped across her chest. A glock was clutched in one hand. The other arm, mechanical from the elbow down, rested with a tarnished steel thumb hooked into her belt.

“Execute them all, Imperator.”

The Imperator strode past him to the line of War Boys standing at the ready.

“Leave no survivors,” she said, her expression severe.

All in the line of Troopers fired upon the panicking crowd with relish. All but one.

\---

Poe struggled to keep up with the car ahead of him. Fumes and dust billowed behind it, sending him into breathless coughing fits. His legs burned, everything hurt, and he could see where the chains around his wrists had rubbed the skin beneath it raw.

The Trooper Boys in the car called and taunted, speeding up or slowing down, raucously enjoying the entertainment it provided them.

All Poe could think about was Bibi and a sob rose in his throat, but he quelled it painfully. It was a struggle to breathe, let alone cry. He needed to survive, whatever it took. He needed to get back to her.

\---

 A small form, keeping low to the ground, was silhouetted against the burning settlement in the distance. Large brown eyes looked back at the blazing, smoking ruin that had once been Tuanul.

But then, all sign of the child was gone, one among many shadows scattered across the rocky expanse.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did anyone else burst out laughing when they read "Kylo Erectus?" Because I did.
> 
> Here are some character ideas that made me want to write this in the first place, so far just the characters we've met:
> 
> Poe is an ace driver for the Vuvulini, a hero for the downtrodden in the apocalyptic wasteland. He is a combination of Poe and Max
> 
> Bibi is a strange, 5 year old wild child with photographic memory, and the adopted daughter of Poe. She is a weird mishmash of BB-8, the "Feral Kid" from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior and... Stitch? (from lilo and stitch, haha)
> 
> Finn is a faceless soldier among thousands that are loyal to their leader, the legendary and elusive Immortan Snoke, to the death. Finn is a strange combination of Finn, Nux, and even a little Furiosa.
> 
> Kylo Erectus, championed warrior and favored (adopted) son of Immortan Snoke, was not always such. Once, he was the son of a waster scoundrel and the leader of the prosperous Vuvulini people. He is obviously a mix of Kylo Ren and Rictus Erectus, thus the hilarious name.
> 
> Imperator Phasma is a loyal, high-ranking soldier in the Immortan's army. As a character, she is a combination of Phasma, Aunty Entity from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, and Furiosa, as far as rank and infamy and the mechanical arm.


	2. Chapter 2

Careful fingertips traced along the inside of the wreck, feeling for something out of sight. A head, goggled and draped in a hood to shield from the desert sun and dusty air, remained partly turned toward the horizon to watch for danger. She didn’t feel like fighting anyone for scraps today.

Rey nodded in quiet triumph when her fingers found what she was looking for. The other scavs had missed it. Tearing her eyes away, she dug through the satchel slung under her arm and pulled out a tool. The tool had no name, cobbled together as it was from different things, but it performed its functions perfectly.

She wedged the pry hook end under the corroded screw head until it popped off, and then jiggled loose the part that it had been anchoring. She made sure that the horizon stayed empty as she slipped tool and part into her satchel.

If she’d had better transport, she’d have taken more, perhaps a door lock mechanism, but there was no time. She could see the approaching group, rippling in the heat.

Rey adjusted the steel staff strapped to her back and seated herself on her bike, transferring the satchel’s contents into the sidecar. It was meant for a passenger, but its purpose had always been for hauling.

She kicked the bike into ignition and shot off back toward the direction of the sinking sun. Another long day of scavving was over for her; the night was for bigger and stronger ones than she, and she didn’t want to get stranded in the cold.

She rounded a bend. Ahead, she could see the stacks and pipes jutting far above the black, sooty structures that clumped together to form Gas Town.

Instead of continuing toward it, she diverted halfway there, heading to what looked like a small lump in the sand from this distance.

Closer, it was more than a lump. A small camper trailer was strategically placed near large boulders and rocky outcroppings in a way that encouraged sand to blow against the back of it, concealing it effectively from three sides.

Rey entered the camper and deposited her satchel on the floor besides her messy, sandy sleeping pallet.  She gave herself a moment's rest, listening to the winds whistling through the cracks in the walls.

She would go to town in the morning. She didn’t feel like dealing with that skinflint, Unkar tonight. Instead, she opened a battered foil packet of dried meat and began chewing on it while she refilled her canteen from the jug sitting atop a makeshift shelf. The discolored plastic container was less than half full. She’d worry about it tomorrow, too.

Outside, the air was becoming more chilled as the sun poised on the jagged horizon. She thought she’d seen a trail of smoke coming from the western mountain range early in the morning, but it was gone now. Probably another raid. They were getting more aggressive. Though she was likely safest where she was, she knew she’d have to move on before long.

When she was finished eating, she used a small wedge of charcoal to mark another line on the ratty, creased poster taped to the back wall of the trailer. She sat back to look at it. The image on it was all but obscured by hatch marks by now, but she could still make out what it was. It was burned into her memory.

 White sand bordering clear blue water. Palm trees arched toward the expanse of sky and waves, and a couple walked along the edge of the shore. A man, tan and strong, in red shorts held hands with the woman, in a bright yellow bathing suit, her free hand holding the floppy straw hat on her head in the breeze. The man held a clear glass bottle of amber liquid in his free hand. The words _Corona_ were emblazoned across the bottom of the picture.

She closed her eyes and pretended she was the woman in the picture, as she had done so many times. She imagined that the man was someone strong and kind. Someone who would share some of the amber liquid in the bottle with her. It looked cold and refreshing.

Somewhere, buried deep and threadworn by time, she thought she remembered a beach, a different beach. But she couldn't be sure.

As Rey often did, she went outside to watch the sunset cast a gradient from fiery red and yellow, to a warm purple, to deep blue, her brown eyes distant, a permanent pinch between her brows.

She was only nineteen. But she felt far older. Above, the stars were beginning to show. A single point of light traveled across the sky and disappeared when it reached the lightest part.

She brushed the accumulated sand from an old, battered MFP helmet next to her, a remnant from before the Fall. She tapped the sand out of it, and then pulled it on. Supposedly, the Main Force Patrol was once a noble group, dedicated to defending the laws of the road. Of course, just like everything else good in the world, it didn’t last forever.

She liked wearing it, even though it was too big for her. She felt like she could be someone important in a helmet like that. Someone with a purpose. As the last sliver of sun hovered over the western mountains, Rey considered going inside and getting an early night’s sleep. Unkar was sometimes more magnanimous in the morning.

A strange noise cut across the wastes. Rey perked up, sat very still. She heard it again, this time louder and more insistent. A keening, animalistic snarl that rose over the dunes. She threw the helmet to the ground and grabbed her staff.

Wasters, two of them, unaligned by the looks of their garb, were trying to grab a smaller figure that thrashed in their net. Thinking it might be a dog, or some other kind of food, Rey sized up the competition. She could take them, she decided. And then, the dog screamed a warning.

It wasn’t a dog, but a child, tangled in a net. Rey didn’t think. She charged forward with a warcry, taking a swing at one of them as soon as she was in range. She missed, but she wasn’t trying to kill, only intimidate. The Waster fell backwards, not expecting to have to fight. The other, a woman with black teeth and tattoos covering her face, pulled out a knife.

“Leave it alone,” Rey snarled, baring her teeth.

“Maybe we want to take care of it,” the woman sneered. Still, she shuffled back as her male companion scrambled to his feet. His hood had fallen back, exposing the tattooed mark of a Slaver.

“Body trade is illegal in Gas Town,” Rey said, continuing to feint toward them, jabbing the staff. The woman leaned forward, baring the entirety of her mottled, crooked grimace.

“Not if you know who to ask.”

The child in the netting growled and tried to lunge, but it was hampered by the rope. Rey used the distraction to give the male Slaver a good thwack on the side of his head. He fell back again, clutching his head with a cry.

“C’mon, s’not worth it,” he said to the woman. Rey met her ferocious growl with a roar of her own, and without further defiance, the two hurried away.

Rey hurried over to the tangled mass of child and net, only to face a snarling, snapping beast.

“Hey, I’m not one of them,” she said, returning her staff to her back and raising her hands in a peace offering. Her voice seemed to calm the child, but her gesture went unseen. Black, tangled curls obscured the entire top half of its face, but still, the child sank in a panting heap.

“I’m gonna cut you out of that net, okay? Don’t bite me.”

Rey waited, but the child showed no sign of resistance. She lowered herself into a crouch, and using the knife attached to her waist by a holster, she began to cut through the webbing. As soon as the first strands were severed, the child began to tear the net away from itself, heaving through the opening and onto the bare sand. And then, without taking a beat, scrambled to its feet. Rey stood back for a moment, unsure of the best move. Slowly, she returned the blade to its sheath.

“Those were Slavers. They were going to sell you for parts. Or worse. What are you doing out here all alone?” Rey asked.

The child turned around in its place, mouth open. Rey could not tell whether it was a boy or a girl, but now, it was more like a frightened animal. She bit her lip, wondered if she could risk it.

“Hey, your hair is in the way,” she said. Without rising from her crouch, she reached out, brushed the black curls aside, and saw a flash of one large brown eye before the child jerked back. A girl.

“I’m not going to hurt you. Why are you out here?” Rey asked, looking around. It was a dangerous place for anyone, let alone a child.

A small hand moved the hair out of her eyes again and Rey found herself looking face-to-face with a strange kind of scrutiny. The girl looked Rey over, and then her mouth split into a wide grin. She grunted, moved forward, grabbed Rey’s hand.

“What, are you looking for something?” Rey asked, unnerved. There was dirt caked under the girl’s nails, but her clothes suggested that she’d been cared for once. “Or someone?”

She nodded, making a throaty grunting noise. And then, she pointed right at Rey.

Rey scowled. “I can’t take care of you. Where are your parents?”

Instead of answering, the girl lowered into a crouch and began to trace something in the sand. Rey was nonplussed. She couldn’t deal with the responsibility of a child, especially a feral like this one. But there was something about her, something that spoke of a deeper story. She looked down to see what the girl was doing. It looked like a map.

“I don’t know where that is,” Rey said. She pointed behind her, where the tiny smokestacks were still visible in the distance in the waning light. “Gas Town is that way.”

The child shook her head and started again, drawing the same map again. Rey pursed her lips. Whatever it was, it looked mountainous. And was that wavy line supposed to be water? Rey shrugged. Frustrated, the child stood up and walked directly in front of her. The expression on her face was solemn.

Rey fought the unwelcome feelings that were starting to push their way through.

“Look, I don’t know who you think I am. I’m nothing. Just a scav. I can’t help you.”

When the small hand took hers again, Rey found her fingers tightening around it. Startled, she pulled back and huffed.

“Fine. But just until tomorrow. Then you’re on your own.”

\---

EARLIER THAT DAY

The first chance he got after the War Party’s return, Finn hid himself in the shadows of a branching corridor, out of sight of his boisterous, exultant fellows.

He swiped at the caked powder on his face, smearing the black grease and the blood. He wanted it off him. He wanted to wash himself of the horrors of that night. The face of the prisoner flashed into his mind, running behind one of the other pursuit vehicles. It turned into another face, the face of Slip as the light left his eyes. It was Slip’s blood on his hands, now.

“Who told you that you could remove your War Paint?” a cold, female voice sounded behind him.

Finn jolted, his back hitting the wall.

“Imperator Phasma,” he stuttered, facing the female warrior in all her chainmail-clad glory.

“Is there something wrong with your gun? And your blade, Trooper?” she asked.

“Jammed,” he blurted. Her eyes narrowed in a way that told him she knew he was not telling the truth. His pulse leapt into his throat.

“Are you sick? You need a top off?” she asked, looking him over. Her chainmail armor glinted in the semi-darkness like the teeth of a predator.

Finn shook his head, swallowing revulsion. She also knew that he was not sick. Finn, unlike many of the other Trooper Boys, was healthy. She stepped closer to him. Finn tightened his jaw and forced his back straight, though no matter his effort, the woman still towered over him.

“Cowards don’t make it to Valhalla, soldier,” she said with a menacing twitch of her lip. “They have no place in the Immortan’s army.”

 “Yes, boss. Won’t happen again.”

When Phasma finally left him alone, Finn deflated and let go of the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He braced an arm against the wall. His brows furrowed as he waited for his heart to settle.

He wasn’t a coward. And he would prove it.

\---

Everything was agony. Blood mingled with the sweat that dripped into his eyes and dampened his curls. But, as the vile torturers worked their magic on his nervous system, the worst pain was that which came with the realization that he would never see Bibi again. That he had failed her.

He would drift into unconsciousness, only to be forced back to agonizing awareness by some new torment.

But this time, when he rawoke, he was surprised to see that the room was empty. Light filtered through the rusted metal grating that formed the ceiling. Cold, rancid water dripped down chains that dangled like a forest of rusted, grimy vines. Chains bound his hands to the post, and others dug into his waist and neck, keeping him from sinking to the floor on threat of strangulation. Some part of him was tempted.

He breathed, tried to swallow away the taste of bitter blood and sweat and salt that seemed to coat his mouth and stick to his teeth, but his mouth was too dry. His head throbbed. He tried to savor even this moment of peace, even if it only gave his mind license to return to his failure as a father. He began to sag against the chains again, nearly giving way to despair now that none were around to witness it.

“I had no idea that we had the best driver in the resistance among us,” a low, growling voice sounded from the dark.

Poe jerked upright, weary eyes struggling to make sense of the shadows around him. The chains swayed, water dripped steadily. It smelled like piss and sweat and blood.

Suddenly, the chains in front of him parted and a familiar figure emerged from the darkness. Poe regarded him warily. The son of the Immortan himself.

“Enjoying yourself?” Kylo Erectus asked, his voice coy.

Poe mustered defiance, even now. Especially now.

“You all have a strange idea of a good time,” he said. Even now, he struggled to keep his eyes open, but he scarcely dared to even blink.

“You’re stronger than my interrogators,” the masked man replied, his dark eyes devoid of compassion or humanity. “Strength squandered by those desert hags.”

Anger flashed in Poe’s eyes and Kylo regarded it with keen interest.

“The Vuvalini won’t be intimidated by you. No matter how many towns you burn. Or how many old men you cut down.”

A black gloved hand reached out suddenly and gripped Poe’s hair, smacking the back of his skull against the post. The masked man’s face was too close to his, dark eyes narrowed as though he somehow looked through Poe, past him. Poe could smell the gasoline on him, the smoke and blood. Poe gritted his teeth, even as the fist tightened and he could feel the hairs ripping out of his scalp one at a time.

“What about children?” he asked, his voice far too calm for the context. “Or… one child in particular?”

Poe’s eyes widened in horror. They must have seen her. Bibi’s wide eyes flashed before him. Bibi, running into the dark, alone. Bibi, whose precious head carried knowledge far too dangerous, too burdensome for a child so young.

Kylo seemed to sense a change in him, and though his mouth was obscured by the façade of grinning bone teeth, his eyes tightened with his smile. He’d already won the first battle. But Poe would not give in. He didn’t know that Bibi carried important information in her little head. And Poe would take that to his grave. He could do that for her, at least.

He let go of Poe’s hair and stepped back. And then, from somewhere out of sight, he withdrew a syringe filled with pinkish fluid. Poe’s eyes followed it involuntarily.

“Do you know what this is?”

Poe clenched his jaw and prepared for the worst.

“Try me.”

Kylo looked at it as though it were a curious thing, and watched how the light played off the liquid inside.

“It’s something the Organic Mechanic thought up in that twisted mind of his. A mixture of opioids and barbituates. And a little something extra, to intensify sensation.”

Poe’s eyes widened and he felt the blood leave his face. He knew enough to know that similar drugs often circulated among the lowest elements of society, the hopeless, the Wretched that flocked to any population center. Anyone so desperate for escape that they were willing to inject poison for a moment of euphoria.  Kylo waved his gloved hand dismissively.

“Diluted, of course, so that you remain aware. You may even find the sensations… pleasant. If I so choose.”

Despite himself, Poe’s heart began to pound. His vision started to swim as panic gripped him. He fought it down, tried to think of Bibi. He promised he’d find her. She could be waiting for him right now, scared and alone. And then he wondered if he should be thinking of her at all. He had to try to stay present, to not forget what was important, no matter what.

Suddenly, Kylo’s gloved hand gripped his face, forced his face under scrutiny. The thumb caressed his cheek. Revolted, Poe jerked away, but a flash of reflected light in his periphery made him freeze. The needle glinted, close enough to his eye that he couldn’t quite bring it into focus.

“I’m not telling you anything,” Poe said, attempting a fierce expression. He could tell by the look in Kylo Erectus’s eyes that he’d failed.

“That’s fine. I don’t have anything better to do.”

\---

Long after the screams and moans had died down, Kylo Erectus emerged from the room. A slender, fair-skinned man in pale colors waited for him. His arms were crossed over his chest and he wore a tight expression.

“A child,” Kylo said, wiping his gloved hands with a stained and dirty rag. Corpus Hux’s expression soured without appearing to change at all.

“A child?”

Kylo, nonchalant, tucked the cloth back into the back of his black breeches before responding.

“His child. She saw the map,” Kylo said. Hux, used to this game of vagueities and baiting, simply raised a brow and waited. Kylo continued. “The little waste rat has perfect memory. She can recreate the map without defect.”

“And that helps us how? What would stop the whelp from lying?”

Kylo shrugged and ran his fingers back through his hair, appearing in every way as though he’d just had a relaxing respite.

“She won’t.”

Despite Hux’s outward demeanor, the confidence with which Kylo spoke unnerved him. Still, he squared his shoulders and nodded an affirmative.

“I’ll send word to the other settlements immediately.”

Without another word, Kylo Erectus strode away, either unaware or unconcerned with the look of pointed distaste on Corpus Hux’s face.

\---

When Rey awoke, she lay on her pallet for a moment until she became more accustomed to consciousness. She was already going through her plan for the day when she heard a small noise. A scratching noise. Instinctually, she reached for the staff tucked between her pallet and the wall. Had a waste rat gotten inside? She would have to be careful not to spook the beast. The giant, mutated rodents were nasty when cornered.

She reached up and pulled the cord to open the ratty blinds and let in sunlight. A small, hunched form with wild brown hair was turned away from her, moving slightly. Scratch scratch. Rey didn’t recognize the child at first, lacking her orange and white jumpsuit as she was. For a moment, she thought some _other_ wild little girl had found her way into her trailer.

“What are you doing?” Rey asked, in a tone a little harsher than she’d meant it. The girl peeked back behind her shoulder briefly before returning to whatever she was toying with on the floor. Rey heard a rattle of paper and her eyes shot to the wall. Where her poster should have been, there was now an empty space. “Hey, what are you doing?!”

Rey sprung out of her bed, sleep-stiffened joints cracking. The girl paused and looked up. In her small hand was the sharp piece of charcoal Rey used for writing. Her other hand was pinning the wrinkled, creased image of the couple on the beach so that she could better draw on it.

Rey nearly ripped it when she snatched it from her. The girl jumped for it, growling, but Rey held it up and out of her reach. She tilted it toward the light to see the damage.

The couple were completely obscured by thick, black scribbles. A crude drawing of a bird was scrawled in the blank space to the left of them, and an angry-looking face with sharp teeth was scrawled over the word Corona. The girl’s desperate fingers scrabbled and she whined wordlessly as she tried to get her hands on the poster again. Rey closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe more slowly, to get a hold on her feelings.

“This is _mine,_ ” Rey said firmly, shaking the picture at her. The girl narrowed her eyes and then turned away, crouched. She was drawing something on the wall. With the rising sun bringing more light to the interior, Rey could now see that every surface within a child’s reach was covered in drawings and scribbles and nonsense writing.

Outrage gave way to bafflement. Though her drawing style was crude, Rey could, upon closer inspection, see figures. Jagged lines of what could have been fire, big angry faces with bone teeth, figures drawn horizontal, as though they were laying down. Or dead. Rey saw a recurring image of a stick figure with round, curly scribbles for hair and a U-shaped smile.

She looked at the little girl again, and what she was drawing. The same figure, but this time with a smaller one next to it.

Rey crouched down next to the girl and pointed at the small one.

“Is that you?” The girl grunted, staring at her drawing. Rey’s brow cinched. She pointed at the curly-haired person next to her. “Who’s that?”

The girl didn’t answer. Instead, she looked at the poster in Rey’s hand. Rey scanned the ruined front of it with weary resignation, and then turned it over. There, scrawled in black smudgy lines, was the same map that the girl had drawn yesterday. Etched with a more precise tool, more detail was evident. Even script.

Rey didn’t understand the writing, but it was clear that, while the child seemed to have trouble talking, she was not simple-minded.

“What’s your name?” she asked with measured kindness. The girl tapped the charcoal on the wall. What Rey had assumed to be nonsense writing, a series of capital Bs in varying sizes, had some other meaning to the girl. “Bee?”

She tapped twice, insistently.

“Bibi?” Rey asked. The little girl hummed and dropped the charcoal. Bibi. She could communicate. Rey couldn’t help but accept that she might have underestimated the child.

Now she was rooting around in Rey’s belongings. Rey could imagine what the girl was looking for. She gently ushered her away before pulling out the packet of dried meat. A few big pieces were left, and Rey let her have them, choosing to sit back and watch the child.

“I’m Rey,” she said with some hesitation. It felt strange to say it aloud. It had been so long since anyone had used her name, as opposed to “scav” or “slag” or “waste rat.” The significance was lost on the little girl, who acknowledged it with a brief glance.

Troubled by the images on her wall, Rey folded up the poster and tucked it into her back pocket.

When Bibi was done eating, Rey helped her back into her jumpsuit. The garment was a little strange. It was clearly handmade, but done with care. And somehow, Rey had missed the canteen clipped to the belt loop. When she tried to inspect it further, the girl growled, so Rey backed off. Maybe it belonged to the curly-haired man in the pictures.

She cleared out the sidecar to make room for Bibi, tucking the gas can and water jug at her feet, and placing a small bundle of parts on her lap which the girl held onto protectively. Together they headed toward Gas Town.

\---

For some time after he regained consciousness, Poe didn’t move. He wasn’t sure why his head felt so heavy, why his feet were numb. When he opened his eyes, he couldn’t make sense of what he saw at first. And then he realized that the floor was above his head. Looking up, or down as it were, he could see drying spots of his blood. He thought he remembered someone dragging him out of the room and through the halls, but where was he now?

He was upside down, for one. A sharp itch on his neck made him want to scratch, but his hands were bound together and chained to his ankles. His weight pulled the chains tight, and his trousers did little to cushion his skin against the metal links. Slowly, awareness returned to him.

Echoing in the halls within Starkiller Citadel’s structure were screams and shouts and constant, ceaseless banging. Poe simply stared at the iron bars of his crow’s cage, wishing to return to the relief of unconsciousness. Reality was more than he could bear.

Poe had heard of truth serums before. He had assumed that the technology to craft something like that was long gone, but somehow… he clenched his eyes against the grief, but he didn’t care anymore if any heard his pathetic, breathless sobs.

Flashes of soft, dark eyes looking into his, as though they could see his thoughts. Questions, asked in a gravelly, growly voice, seemed somehow soothing as his body floated, weightless and buoyant under the influence of the opioids. Poe had resisted. He had paid for it, too. Pain, inflicted on him with the cocktail of drugs in his veins, had cut through him like fire. Had rippled and spread and reflected, magnifying and receding. It only made the moments of respite even more agonizing. He remembered his own voice and how his every thought seemed to pour out of him like water in the absence of pain.

He’d told him everything. And the worst part was that he’d been relieved to do so. It had felt like talking to a friend in a dream. The man’s voice had been so calm, so comforting as he asked Poe questions about his daughter, had even laughed with Poe as he recounted some of the more amusing stories, the things he loved about her. The man had seemed interested. He’d wanted to help her, if only Poe could tell him where she might be, what she was wearing, her name.

His hazy, addled brain couldn’t tell that the one who inflicted him with the pain, and then soothed him was the same person. One was kind, and had only wanted to help Poe, to make him feel good. The other was merciless and seemed to enjoy hurting him.

But now, Poe knew; there had been no one in that room except for him and that man.

Poe quieted his sobs when he felt the blackness encroaching around the edges, welcomed it willingly. His head felt so tight. A drop of sweat dripped from his chin onto the underside of his nose.

A voice cut through the fog. It was coming from outside his cage.

“I need that waster scum,” it said. Fear shot through Poe like a dagger and he was awake again. He would die before he let what happened to him happen again.

“What for?”

“Boss’s orders,” was the reply. Poe prepared for the worst. But something wasn’t right. The Trooper Boy was acting furtive, secretive as he unlocked the chains and slowly lowered Poe’s body to the floor. Despite his care, Poe dropped heavily onto his back. He had to wait for the pounding to fade before he could move, as the blood rushed from his head to the rest of him, but there was no time.

The Trooper Boy grabbed his arm, helped him to his feet, unlocked his ankle chain. Poe nearly bolted, but the gun aimed at him stopped him. _Gotta stay alive,_ he thought. _Gotta find Bibi before they do._

The young man’s serious brow was set with tension, and his sweat had all but washed away the white pigment they all wore. Poe could see hints of a healthy, handsome young man with dark skin and a sensitive, full mouth.

He thought he might still be a little delirious, because when the Trooper boy ushered him out with a pistol pressed lightly into Poe’s lower back, he didn’t feel in danger. After all, he’d already lost everything. What more could they take from him?

Halfway down the hall, his armed escort looked around surreptitiously and then shoved Poe into a narrow side corridor, wedging himself in opposite him. He began putting his gun away, checking the entrance of the narrow walkway for eavesdroppers. Poe, tired and woozy, stared.

“I’m going to get you out of here, but you have to do exactly what I tell you,” he said.

“What?”

The Trooper Boy sighed impatiently and swiped the sweaty pigment off his brow, revealing more of the warm, dark skin underneath, and the undeniable anxiety on his face.

“We’re gonna escape. Can you drive a War Rig?”

Poe’s despair gave way to confusion. Was he dreaming? None of this made sense, unless…

“Are you with the Vuvalini?” he dared to hope.

“What? No. We’re getting out of here. Can you drive a rig or not?”

This wasn’t a trick. Everything about the Trooper Boy read as fearful, tense. More than anything else, it told Poe that this young man was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

“I can drive anything,” he said, lifting his chin with pride. “Big rig, bike, tank, even a gyrocopter. I’m the best.”

The Trooper Boy made a small triumphant fist-pump and Poe couldn’t help but smile at the sincerity of it. The act of smiling crowded out the bad feelings that had been accumulating inside of him. There was the faintest flicker of hope, if he dared trust him. But why?

“We’ve gotta go now,” he said, peering around the corner. He motioned to Poe with the gun. Poe raised his hands, still chained together.

“Wait, why are you helping me?”

The Trooper Boy paused for a moment before meeting Poe’s eyes. The bold resolve in his expression took him aback.

“Because you don’t deserve this. No one deserves it.”

Poe scanned the Trooper Boy from short-cropped head to his bare, white-streaked chest, to the black utility pants tucked into scuffed leather boots.

“You’re not a driver, are you?” he asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow.

The Trooper Boy rubbed the back of his neck in a sheepish gesture.

“I’m a lancer. Nines is the Rev-head,” he answered. Poe didn’t know who Nines was, but he didn’t waste time asking pointless questions.

“Alright, lancer. Let’s do this,” he grinned. The Trooper Boy’s face split into a white-toothed boyish smile that was contagious.

“C’mon.”

Now, when Poe felt the pistol in his back, he didn’t resist. He could only hope that his new ally was true.

\---

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here, we meet Rey. She is a mix of Rey and Max, of course, though I didn't feel the need to change her characterization that much. We can only imagine the kind of life Rey in TFA had between her abandonment and the events of the movie. I'm guessing that this Rey has had it much worse, though.
> 
> Corpus Hux, the son of Immortan Snoke, is an ambitious warlord in training. He is locked in a rivalry with his adopted brother over the favor of their father.
> 
> I intend to keep writing this, but it'll be whenever I have the time. :) thanks for reading! Feel free to comment/criticize.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was never into the idea of crossovers. As a staunch supporter of works that respect canon as much as possible, I wasn't even a fan of AUs. I'm not even sure what this is. Is it a Star Wars: TFA/Mad Max: Fury Road crossover? Or is it a Star Wars: TFA story in a Mad Max: Fury Road AU? Who knows. I just know that it's basically writing itself. Enjoy :)

LATE MORNING

\---

“Two liters for the lot,” the great, fat slug of a man growled as he inspected Rey’s wares. Outraged, Rey slammed a palm on the counter of his junk kiosk.

“Last week these were worth two liters a piece!”

Unkar’s beady eyes narrowed, the spittle hanging off one fat lower lip and trailing into the scruffy stubble that continued past his chin and onto his massive double chin.

“ _Two liters._ You’ll take it if you know what’s good for you, girl.”

Rey grumbled and pushed the gas can toward him. Unkar reached for it and then stopped, his eyes on the little girl standing next to her. Her hand was hooked onto Rey’s belt as she stared Unkar down without blinking.

“What is that?” he asked, his mottled pink hand falling short of the gas can. Rey glanced at Bibi, but her mind went blank when she tried to come up with an answer. She hadn’t prepared a story. Indeed, she didn’t expect anyone to ask about the girl at all.

Rey shrugged.

“Some waster kid.”

Bibi growled. Unkar’s beady eyes widened in unguarded interest.

“I’ll buy her from you,” he said. Rey opened her mouth in disgust, a biting retort on the tip of her tongue, but he cut her off. “For sixteen liters. Prime Guzzoline.”

Rey thought she might have misheard him but behind her in the line, murmurs began to rise. Rey’s heart pounded. With that much fuel, she could leave this place, maybe even make it to the southern territories. She’d never have to see Unkar’s fat face ever again. The possibilities opened themselves up to her and for a moment, she was tempted.

Bibi whined softly in her throat and tightened her grip on Rey’s belt.

“She’s not for sale,” she heard herself say. Unkar growled. Rey ignored him and nodded toward the gas can. “Two liters.”

As Unkar filled the can from the pump in the back, Rey’s heart pounded. She’d just turned down more Guzzoline than she’d ever had in her possession at once. Enough to fill her tank with some to spare. But the girl didn’t deserve whatever use Unkar had in mind for her. There were people living in Gas Town, and everywhere else, that did not value human life, even a child’s.

Rey had been there.

Rey grabbed the gas can before Unkar could change his mind, and, with her hand tightly around Bibi’s, left the trading post behind her and headed into Gas Town. She didn’t like how the winds were beginning to rise from the west. She had her goggles in her satchel, but she would have preferred not to get trapped in Gas Town during a sand storm. This would have to be a short visit.

\---

Finn was hyperalert of every other Trooper Boy in around him, prepared to bolt at the slightest provocation. But to his, and the other man’s surprise, no one seemed to spare them any notice as he pushed his captive through the dark, twisting interior of the Starkiller mesa towers and out into relatively bright daylight on the raised steel girder structure. Here, fleets of vehicles were kept multiple stories above the ground, gassed up and stocked. Rev-heads and Repair Boys were hard at work prepping the pursuit vehicles for the upcoming supply run in the relative shade, or killing time by working on their own cars. Finn guided the captive between maintenance pits and showers of sparks.

“Okay, just relax, stay calm,” Finn muttered to himself.

“I am calm,” the man in front of him said from the corner of his mouth. Finn swallowed and swiped at the sweat forming on his brow. Damp white pigment smeared on the leather cuff on his left arm.

“I’m not talking to you,” he said tersely, his eyes darting from side to side.

He wanted to avoid any undue attention, but it was Nines that he was most trying to avoid. If anyone might find his captive suspicious enough to ask questions, it was Finn’s driver. Someone else might assume that the prisoner with the IV needle still taped to his neck was Finn’s bloodbag. Nines, who’d grown and trained alongside Finn since they were small pups, knew Finn had never needed a top off. Worse, Finn wasn’t sure he could lie to Nines’s face if he asked about the prisoner.

He spotted the Ripper. The matte black ‘69 Dodge Charger had more than a few rust spots, and the tyres were in need of patching, but her savage beauty shone through. Finn and the crew had modified it with an oversized lancer’s perch on the hood and boot in case they needed two lancers, though Finn usually enjoyed the added maneuverability of being the solo lancer. The rectangular front grill bore great spikes, their tips still soiled with old blood and hair from their last run-in with raiders. By now it was a badge of pride, just like every other imperfection.

 A couple of Repair Boys, Coil and Screw, were in the process of a routine tyre pressure and oil level check. Nines was nowhere to be found.

Relieved, Finn dismissed the Repair Boys, stating that he’d take over. Screw was happy for the break, but Coil gave Finn and the chained man a lingering look. Still, he said nothing before he left.

Finn looked around them, and when he saw no one was paying them any attention, he pushed the front seat forward and helped the man climb into the back. Poe scrambled awkwardly, shoving aside a ratty brown tarpaulin covering the spare NOS tanks and ammo strewn across the floor.

\---

Poe was horrified to see how cavalier the storage of the ammunition and NOS tanks was, but he couldn’t protest as he was pushed in with them. He made sure to keep his head below the rearview window. Under the guise of checking the NOS hookups, the Trooper Boy began to unlock the chains linking Poe’s wrists together. Freed from the restraints, Poe sucked air through his teeth when he saw and felt how raw the skin there was.

“Okay, this is the plan,” the Trooper Boy started, glancing at the bustle of activity around them. “We’re going on a supply run-“

“ _What_?” Poe demanded, almost too loud, before the Trooper Boy hushed him, a disconcerting look of panic on his face.

“Look, we’re escorting the War Rig today. It’s the only chance we’ll get. We get far enough away from Starkiller Citadel, no one could catch us, not even the Finalizer.”

“Finalizer?”

“The War Rig.” Finn motioned to one of the levels above where Poe saw, through the rear window, the lower part of what appeared to be a massive tanker, far bigger than any he’d ever seen. Wheels nearly as tall as the men rushing to work on it were fitted with nasty sawblade hubcaps and clusters of wicked spikes protruded in between. Everything above that was out of his view, but he could imagine the piece of work. Disbelief and, admittedly, excitement made it difficult not to smile through his exhaustion.

“I guess we’re doing this,” he said. The Trooper Boy’s answering grin mad his entire face glow, and Poe did not regret his answer. Quickly, he began to pull the tarp back over him, but he stopped him.

“Hey, I don’t even know your name,” he said. And then, with his most charming smile, he held out his hand. “I’m Poe.”

The Trooper Boy seemed unsure at first what to do with the offered hand, but then he took it, and they shook.

“Finn.”

Poe couldn’t help but notice how his heart fluttered. He liked him. Or, he thought with a measure of unease, perhaps he was still under the effects of the warlord’s drug cocktail. He didn’t want to think about it. Either way, it was nice to have an ally. Finn reached into the front seat and grabbed something from the slot in the door. A canteen. With a nod to Poe, he tossed it to him. Poe caught it, his mouth already thirsting for the water inside. But not yet.

The second the tarpaulin was tucked into place, Poe heard someone approaching and held perfectly still.

\---

“ _The fuck you doin’?_ ”

Startled, Finn jumped and banged his head against the upper door frame before he recognized familiar gritty voice. Nines erupted in harsh laughter as Finn rubbed the sore place on his crown. The scarred corners of his teammates mouth gave him a permanent grin, and when he laughed, his mouth flashed like an open wound on his white-painted face. Finn was used to it. He pushed the front seat back into place with a click.

“Prepping the Charger,” he answered as Nines walked around the car, running his gloved hands over the fluid contours of its body with reverence. Finn forced his eyes not to stray to the lump in the back seat, prayed that Nines wouldn’t notice it either. “Can’t believe we’re on the run today.”

“I can,” Nines said with a cocky grin, running his hands back over the red bristle showing through the engine grease on top of his head, and pulling the goggles down over his eyes with a snap. “You just try not to miss your mark when the Boss is watching and we could be in the Finalizer next run.”

“I never miss,” Finn answered with automatic bravado. Nines mimed pointing a gun to Finn’s brain and clicked his tongue before easing into the driver’s seat with almost sensual grace. He ran his gloved palms around the steering wheel and licked his lips. Finn swallowed the fear in his throat and tried to remember to breathe.

“Let’s go,” Nines howled into the garage bay, banging on the roof to an answering cacophony of crows and hollers.

From Finn’s place on the rear lancer’s perch, he could see the freshly-painted Immortan’s sigil lovingly replicated by Nines on Ripper’s roof. By design, the red and white painted image was visible most clearly when seen from above. Or, specifically, from the front cab of a Big Rig.

It was good, in a way. At least their loyalty would not be suspect. But it still made Finn uncomfortable to look at as he prepared to defy everything it stood for.

\---

The Imperator arrived shortly after the Finalizer was lowered to the central valley. Even partially hidden under the loose beige hood and shoulder drape, her signature chainmail bodice was a sliver of shine in the dingy surroundings. Trooper Boys stayed out of her way, their eyes dropping to her close-fitting black pants or heavy brown boots. The solid steel plate riveted to the toes was freshly polished with car wax and, like everything else about her, called to mind the chrome curves of an engine.

Datoo, his forehead and crown blackened with the grease marks of a senior Trooper Boy, climbed up and between the tanker and cab to check connections. He nodded to Phasma as she passed, but immediately returned to his task, his narrow face grim in his concentration.

As the Boys rallied to prepare the supply run, Datoo called out to them.

“We are Troopers,” he shouted, his authoritative voice ringing against the interior walls of the mesas. The answering call of hundreds echoed in uniform answer.

“ _Trooper Boys_.”

Phasma’s face was hard set as she approached the cab.

“Kamikrazee Trooper Boys!” Datoo prompted.

_“Trooper Boys.”_

The Imperator eased into the bucket seat and adjusted the straps on her arm harness, flexed the jointed metal hand. The cab jolted as the tank was fastened to the truck.

“Hooked on!” Datoo shouted from the back. Satisfied with the flexibility of the metal joints, Phasma grabbed the door with her artificial hand and pulled it shut.

“Today we’re headed to Gas Town!”

 _“Gas Town._ ”

Phasma checked the black grease on her forehead and adjusted the rear-view mirror.

“Today we’re haulin’ Aqua-Cola. Produce. And Bantha milk.”

When she heard the uniform, disciplined way the hordes of young men answered, her chest swelled with secret pride. She knew every one of them by name, had helped choose them from among the Wretched. Only the strongest were worthy of being lifted up. By the time they received their marks, they were happy to kill, and die, for their Immortan and his Order.

Most of them, anyway. As her eyes fell on the lancer poised in an agile crouch on the car ahead of her on the tarmac, she couldn’t help but be troubled. Finn’s strange behavior after the raid on Tuanul was uncharacteristic. It wasn’t uncommon for the younger Boys to have moments of fear or moral conflict, but a they usually outgrew it by his age, if they made it to his age.

If he had any intention of proving himself worthy to feast with the heroes in the afterlife, he had his chance today. Nines, on the other hand, she didn’t worry about. There was something wrong with that boy, in the best way.

The rest of the supply crew mounted the tanker and took their positions, and the other escort car, a jacked-up Bel Air with a harpoon gun mounted on the roof, pulled up behind the War Rig.

Phasma’s eyes swept over the loud, irritating press of filthy bodies on either side of the Supply procession. The Wretched crowded and jostled around the edges, hoping for attention, scraps, anything. Desperate, deformed, sick, the wasters that sought refuge within Starkiller Citadel were the lowest element the wastelands had to offer. But Immortan Snoke was wise; the more mercy he showed and the more that flocked to his cause, the greater his power grew.

All the better for her.

\---

The milling crowd looked like ants from far above. Corpus Hux surveyed them with little concern as his second, Mitaka, finished dusting him with the Bentonite clay powder. Hux was already pale, but with his health issues, the antibacterial properties and sun-blocking quality of the clay was as much a benefit to him as to his image as the son of the Immortan. Among everything else, it also served to set him apart from his adopted brother.

Mitaka helped him into the harness which held his black pauldrons in place, and, with almost affectionate care, knelt before him to hook the large Immortan’s sigil to the front of his belt, brushing the long, delicate chains out so that they draped neatly down the front of his long white loincloths.

Hux looked down at him and brushed a black gloved hand through Mitaka’s hair. The senior Trooper Boy’s eyes closed for a second, then he stood and stepped back.

Hux heard Kylo Erectus’s heavy, jangling approach long before he was announced. His agility was unequaled in battle, but amidst the followers of the Order, he affected a cocky, swaggering gait that irritated Hux to no end.

Hux drowned himself in the sounds of the crowd chanting Snoke’s name, and found solace in their blind devotion as Kylo took his place standing beside him. Hux didn’t miss that Kylo’s hand rested on the hilt of his flame sword in an unconscious gesture of pride. The weapon did make for an impressive sight in battle, but Hux had his doubts as to whether the flames made it any more effective. He might have played it with apparent apathy, but Kylo was every bit as concerned with his appearance as Hux was.

“Your messengers?” Kylo asked, his voice both amplified as distorted by the mask he chose to wear. Such theatrics, Hux thought to himself.

“Taken care of,” he replied, already bored with the baby warlord’s nagging. It was one of the few ways Kylo could exercise authority over Hux, and he reveled in it.

“I should hope so,” Kylo replied coolly. Hux’s eyes narrowed, but he ignored the attempt to provoke an argument. While Kylo Erectus chose to prove his worthiness as an heir through brutish displays of dominance, Corpus Hux knew that their father valued the elder son’s shrewd, cool-headedness. Immortan Snoke knew that he could trust Hux in all things, things that his emotional, impulsive brother would never understand.

The crowd rose to a fever pitch as the reflector plates moved into position, casting a fiery spotlight around the imposing Immortan sigil carved into the side of the mesa. Hux stepped forward, accepting the microphone that Mitaka handed to him.

In the center of the massive sigil carved into the side of the mesa, the figures of the Immortan’s sons looked down upon the crowd as all within it clamored to be seen. Wretched rattled their containers, called Snoke’s name, begged for water.

“Rev it up for the sons of Immortan Snoke!” Kylo’s Imperator TK called, his un-augmented voice booming across the chasm, his rank bandanna flapping in the sandy wind.

Corpus Hux raised the microphone and began.

“Once more, we send Immortan Snoke’s flagship War Rig into the dangerous Badlands.” The crowd cheered, and his cold eyes moved over them imperiously. “To bring back Guzzoline from Gas Town, and bullets from the Bullet Farm. Once more, we salute Imperator Phasma. And we salute the half-life Trooper Boys, who will ride with the Immortan eternal on the highways of Valhalla.”

All Trooper Boys in attendance snapped to attention, hands interlaced pressed together over their heads in the gesture of the Order, and a chant rose, steady like a pulse.

_“Order, Order, Order!”_

Hux felt himself begin to swell, as though the crowd infused him with a sense of power that felt at once alien and welcome. With some hesitation, he handed the mic to Kylo.

“Immortan Snoke is our _redeemer_ ,” Kylo growled, his voice rising above Hux’s. “It’s by his hand that we rise from the ashes of this world! It’s through his Order that we bring law to the lawless wastes!”

Thousands of people crowded close, their roar nearly drowning out the Trooper Boy chants of _Order, Order, Order!_

Kylo lowered the microphone and turned his head ever so slightly to the side. Hux was watching him with narrowed eyes. It wasn’t his choice that they shared in this duty, but the insistence of their father.

With a faint smile, Kylo passed the mic to Imperator TK before gripping one of the levers built into the low wall in front of him. Hux took the level in front of himself, and in one movement, they wrenched them downward.

The Wretched crowded close at the base of the mesa. All was hushed for a moment. Then the massive aquifer pipes which protruded beneath the overlook exploded forth with great, swift torrents of water. It gushed down to the crowd below, spilling onto the rocks into the shallow weathered indentation. Those caught directly beneath would be crushed, but that didn’t stop them. The fools.

Hux waited with some measure of disgust before he and Kylo both cut the flow of water. A small smile formed on his mouth as he peered down to see them thrash in the mud and fight one another for the water on the ground.

His duty, and privilege, fulfilled, he turned and walked out without another word.

\---

Rey was happy she’d managed to find someone interested in the small radio she’d repaired. The water vender, only interested in rare artifacts of the Beforetime, gave her enough water to refill both her and Bibi’s canteens.

She’d have to teach the little sprog how to tinker, she thought with some amusement. Get her to earn her keep.

She shook the thought away. What was she doing? She couldn’t get attached. But it was too late, wasn’t it? Bibi had already grown fond of Rey; the child kept close to her as she walked, and even took hold of Rey’s hand in crowded areas, a sour frown on her face as she looked at the other residents of Gas Town.

Further attempts to get her to talk yielded little results. Once, Bibi began to trace that map picture again as if in answer, but Rey quickly scuffed sand over the design. For some reason, she didn’t want anyone to see. If the child was in danger, drawing attention to them by scratching photo-perfect maps on the ground was a bad idea. Already they’d gotten more attention than Rey would have liked.

She guided Bibi to a food vendor on the street selling lizard kabobs. After lunch they would leave, she decided. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and Gas Town as possible, at least until she had a plan.

Rey and Bibi sat on a low, dirt-brick wall near the outskirts, her feet resting on her bike, and ate their lizards. Together they watched the bustle of the marketplace a few blocks ahead. At first, she liked that Bibi didn’t talk. She was used to the solitude. But before long, Rey found herself talking to her anyway.

“You can go scavving with me tomorrow,” Rey said around a greasy mouthful. Bibi only burped in response. Rey continued. “I can show you how to find food and water, even out there. Unless you already know.”

Rey regarded the wild-looking child, gnawing on the kebab stick, big eyes focused on the task at hand. She didn’t look malnourished. And she was certainly feisty enough. But she was still a child, and Rey didn’t feel comfortable letting her go without knowing for sure that she could watch out for herself. In fact, the more she thought about it, the less convinced she was that letting her go was the right thing to do. After all, Rey knew what it felt like to be abandoned, without anyone to teach the ways of the real world. She had to learn everything on her own, or, when desperate, repairing vehicles and parts under Unkar’s harsh employ. She couldn’t leave Bibi to that fate.

It was settled. Bibi wasn’t going anywhere, at least not until Rey could find out where she’d come from. Maybe even return her to her people, if there were any left. Rey wondered if they had room for one more.

Unaware of the conflict going through Rey’s mind, Bibi finished her crunchy lizard and sucked on her fingers.

Movement in the edges of her vision caught Rey’s attention. A group of three waster scavs, better outfitted in black leather than most she’d seen, were passing them too slowly for Rey’s comfort, sparing furtive glances in their direction and speaking lowly. Bibi was watching them, too, her large eyes unblinking.

The man in the middle turned and came to a stop in front of them, his lackeys followed. Rey’s eyes darted over them. They weren’t just wasters, their armor and clothing suggested paid mercenaries. She swallowed the last chunk of lizard and tossed the stick behind her.

The leader’s face was almost entirely obscured by ratty wraps and a hood, and goggles gave him the appearance of a giant fly, helped by the shreds of fabric hanging down his back like wings.

“How much for the kid?” he said to Rey, jerking his head to Bibi. Rey rose to her feet, an expression of disgust and horror on her face. What was with everyone’s interest in Bibi?

“I’m not giving her to you,” she said, calm and unblinking. The leader laughed and Bibi started to growl low in her throat.

“You give her to me, or I take her. Your choice.”

The lackeys stepped forward. One, with a scar on his lip which gave his goggled face a permanent sneer, tapped his baton against one gloved palm. The other, sallow of skin with sunken cheeks and eye sockets, began pulling a crumpled, weighted net out of a bag strapped to his waist.

“We can use her, too,” the one with the baton said with a leer, looking right at Rey. Nausea roiled in her stomach when she saw his jagged yellow teeth.

“The Immortan only wants the kid,” the leader said, the glass of his goggles flashing in the harsh sun as he made a show of scanning Rey from head to toe. Her cheeks burned with indignation. He shrugged. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun.”

Rey reached for her staff, but she was too slow.

The gaunt man was a blur as he threw the net over Bibi with practiced ease. He moved to grab her, avoiding her thrashing, clawed hands and snapping teeth. Rey cracked him in the jaw with one end of her staff and caught one of the others in the backswing.

The netter grabbed her staff, she rammed it into his stomach, he stumbled back gasping. Her knife was in her other hand. With a careful swipe, she cut a hole in the netting. A pair of arms grabbed Rey’s staff and arm from behind. She slammed her head back into theirs with a resounding crack.

The child, now a ball of snarling rage, spilled out and launched herself at the one with the baton, wrapping her arms around his neck with surprising strength. An errant fist punched Rey in the shoulder. She spun to face the leader as he drew a blade from its sheath on his belt. He swiped at her, she ducked, and the blade whistled harmlessly over her head. She swung her staff at the back of his knees, sweeping his legs out from under him.

Bibi growled and clawed at the other lackey’s face, his baton was laying useless on the ground. He tried to grab her, but she bit his hands until she broke skin. He screamed, and his goggles slipped down around his neck. Bibi grabbed the strap and dropped off his back, pulling the strap tight and strangling him with her weight.

Rey threw off the netter, smashing him in the side of the head with the butt of her staff. This time, when he went down, he stayed down. Bibi’s merc crashed to the ground, and she tumbled to the side. She was on him again in an instant, clawing at his exposed eyes.

Rey pulled Bibi off the waster and ran for her bike before the merc leader could regain his feet. She caught a glimpse of the handgun in the leader’s hands seconds before he started firing.

Forgetting her bike, she vaulted herself and Bibi over the wall as bullets sprayed the ground behind them. The bullets pinged metal, and then one of them hit the gas tank.

She protected Bibi with her body as heat and debris from the explosion passed over her head.

 _“Watch your fire, you idiot,_ ” someone shouted. “ _They call it Gas Town for a reason_!”

As they began to argue, Rey checked Bibi over. She was scared, scuffed, and dirty, but she was otherwise unharmed.

“You ready to run?” she asked. Bibi looked at her. Then she nodded.

With Bibi’s hand in hers, Rey sprang from behind the wall, into an alley, and then around a corner. There, she stopped to catch her breath.

People were staring. Rey ignored them as her mind raced, desperate to find an escape. Her bike was gone, but there were garages everywhere. She could probably hotwire anything, if she needed to.

She heard shouts. Gas Town guards. Rey spotted a rickety ladder leading to the roof of the building opposite her. Maybe up there she could better find an exit. She hefted Bibi onto her back.

“Hold on tight, okay?” Bibi’s arms wrapped around Rey’s shoulders and her legs locked around Rey’s waist. With one arm hooked onto Bibi’s leg, and the other on the ladder rung, Rey sped up the side of the building and slipped over the edge as she heard her pursuers come into the alley below. She set Bibi down and pulled the multitool out of her satchel. The ladder rattled against the concrete building as they began to ascend. With speed fueled by adrenaline, she snapped off the bolts anchoring the ladder to the corner of the building and pushed.

The ladder, and whomever was on it, crashed down into the alley below.

Bibi was gone. Rey looked for her, frantic, and spotted her crouched by the center of the roof, looking down through an open section. Rey rushed over, ready to scold her for running off, but then she saw what Bibi was looking at.

There, atop a platform beneath the open section of roof, was a two-seater autogyro. It was even supplied with two helmets bearing the Immortan’s sigil.

“Wait here,” she said to Bibi before dropping off the edge and soundlessly onto her feet on the platform below.

Her pursuers were confronting the garage’s armed guards. More shouts in the street below. She spotted the platform controls and jammed the lift button. The sound of the machinery groaning as the platform began to rise drew the attention of the guards. The Gas Town Troopers and the merc gangs shoved past the guards and flooded in through the door. They sprinted toward the ramp to the upper levels where the platform had been.

It was rising too slowly.

Rey called Bibi to her, but she was already running, a look of manic glee on her face when she saw the autogyro.

When the platform was locked into place level with the roof, Rey smashed the controls with the butt of her staff before returning it to its place on her back. Rey helped Bibi into the passenger seat and buckled her in. Without prompting, Bibi pulled on one of the helmets and Rey followed suit.

Rey started the motor just as she a rappeler hook shot over and then latched onto the edge of the roof behind them. The autogyro began to roll forward, slowly. Rey checked the controls. She’d never flown one of these before, but she’d pulled a couple apart. Rudder pedals, throttle, control stick. Simple.

She reached up and began to manually push the overhead rotor, her eyes on the edge of the roof perhaps a dozen short meters ahead of them. It was a short runway. There was literally no room for error.

The gyrocopter began to move faster, and now the rotor was moving on its own, picking up speed. Rey eased the throttle forward, the copter began to shake and rattle, motor rumbling. Rey gritted her teeth. Bibi craned her neck to look behind them. Rey didn’t need to look to know that they were on the roof, running after her.

She felt the lift only seconds before they hit the edge of the roof, and then they were clear. Rey boosted the throttle, urging the vehicle to rise higher.

Bullets whizzed by, one glanced off the side panel of the cockpit, but the upper levels of the refinery structure kept falling away behind them. They passed through the ashy haze that hovered over Gas Town.

Apart from the wind and the sound of the gas motor, it was near silent from this height.

Rey had often looked to birds with envy for how they could shed their earthly ties and rise above everything. Now, she was one of them. Despite the danger they’d just barely managed to escape, she was smiling.

\---

When Kylo Erectus entered the bleeding room to check on his new plaything, all he found was an empty cage and a languid, half-dead Trooper boy hooked up to another bloodbag. The Organic Mechanic entered the space, wiping his gloves, wet with blood from some horrific surgery, onto his stained apron.

He faltered when he saw Kylo. Kylo gripped his neck and slammed the man into the wall behind him.

“Where’s the bloodbag that was right here?” he asked. The Organic Mechanic looked to the cage in question, his eyes bugging, and began to stutter breathlessly.

“Gone,” the half-dead boy sitting on the floor said. Kylo spun on his heels without releasing the doc.

“ _What?_ ”

“One o’ the other boys took ‘im.”

Kylo’s hand squeezed into the neck it gripped. The Organic Mechanic began to choke and struggle. Kylo didn’t release him, instead he drew in close until he could smell the sweat and fear on him.

“You were supposed to guard him. High Octane blood, universal donor. _My prisoner._ ”

The doc couldn’t answer, of course. Disgusted, Kylo let him go, and he collapsed on the floor. Kylo Erectus swept out, his frayed black skirts flying behind him. He had no doubt where the driver was. He had to hurry, they already had an hour’s head start.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to write cars, and I only sort of know how to write action in general, so I apologize if any of the scenes were confusing or hard to follow. That goes for the next chapter, too. Thanks for reading this shit!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Bibi, Finn and Poe, Phasma and her Trooper Boys, and Nines all converge in one of the biggest sandstorms in years. Good idea? Probably not.

The last hour or so had been one of the most agonizing of Poe's life. Crammed in the back of the charger, beneath the tarp, scarcely daring to, or able to, breathe, Poe was sure this was how he was going to die. The water had helped, though finding a way to drink out if the canteen without being seen or heard had been a challenge unto itself. Still, he was grateful for it.

He did wonder if he'd lost his mind, though. After what he'd endured at the hands of the Immortan's son, the strangely earnest Trooper Boy's offer of help had seemed like a good idea. Now, he wasn't so sure. He couldn't even look to see the world around them. He had no idea how Finn intended to get his friend out of the driver's seat. At his full strength, Poe might have been strong enough to take the other Trooper Boy in a fight, but now? Nines seemed wild, dangerous, and now he was stuck inside the car with him while Finn held his place on the lancer's perch outside

Regardless, even if they did manage to overcome Nines and take control of the car, Finn wanted a driver who could handle the War Rig. As heavily guarded as it was, Poe hadn't the faintest idea how they were going to manage that. He'd seen the female Imperator; she was even more imposing than Nines.

The more he thought about it, the more the panic began to rise inside of him. Every time it got to a point where he thought he couldn't take it, he made himself think of his little girl. How many hours had it been since he had sent her off alone in the darkness? How many more would it be before he could see her again? He didn't let himself think of any other possible outcome. He made a promise. One way or another, he would fulfil it.

So he waited in still silence, forcing himself not to wipe at the sweat tickling him as it rolled down his forehead.

* * *

  
The lookout perched on top of the tanker saw the wall of sand rising in the distance to the west at the same moment that Phasma did. Around Kessel Road, the winds had all but died down and the sounds of the supply run's engines echoed across the wastes with an eerie clarity. Any wasteland survivor worth their salt knew what that probably meant: sandstorm. And by the looks of the looming clouds that were arching up to the sky in the horizon, obscuring the distant western mountain range, it was going to be a big one.

She heard the shouts, and moments later, Datoo, goggles over his eyes, sidled along the outside of her driver side door.

"Storm's rising, Boss," he said, his strong chest heaving with heavy breaths.

"It's fine," she said.

"Boss?"

She sighed and looked at him.

"We can reach Gas Town before it gets to us. It's fine."

Datoo nodded before disappearing back out of sight. She heard him relay the order to the others

"Fang it!"

Despite her cool, Phasma's eyes darted to the distant horizon, double checking her mental calculations.

* * *

  
Finn eyed the distant sandstorm with apprehension as Ripper's motor screamed. This was not part of the plan. He looked down into the charger's narrow rear window. He couldn't tell that the tarp concealed a fully-grown man. He just hoped that Nines couldn't either.

After a customary amount of time, Finn picked his way along the modified side bumper below the side doors. Gripping the top of the passenger side doorframe, he slipped his body through the open window and into the interior.

Nines's goggled eyes blazed in reflected light as he focused on the cracked asphalt road ahead of them.

"What are you doing? Get back to your post."

"Maybe we should pull back, let the War Rig shield us. I mean, we just put a fresh coat on 'er." Finn tried to measure the distance between him and Nines' driver side door hinge.

Nines granted him a nasty leer.

"You scared?"

Finn laughed, but it sounded forced.

"Hell no."

Nines side-eyed him, licking scarred lips with his red tongue.

"You been acting weird lately," he said. Finn's heart leaped into his throat and he scrambled for a response, but Nines continued before he could speak, his tone low. "You sure the Organic cleared you for a run?"

Finn glared, indignant and embarrassed by the show of guarded concern, more so knowing that they had a secret audience.

"I'm healthier than you. Stronger than you, too."

Nines snorted, all seriousness replaced by his customary manic grin and a predatory glint in his eye. Guilt twisted in Finn's gut.

"You need more'n brute strength to do what I do. Driving's like fucking. It takes finesse," Nines said, gripping the tiny skull on the head of the gearstick with a flourish of his fingers. "And a big pair of rocks."

With that, Nines changed gears, planting Finn against the back of his seat as they took the lead ahead of the other escort car.

Finn couldn't help but grin. But when he remembered what he was planning to do, his smile, and his brief levity, fell away.

The rest of the party increased in speed to keep pace behind them. With one hand on the wheel, Nines stuck his head out the open window, pumped his fist in the air and howled triumphantly. Finn followed suit, forcing enthusiasm for the sake of appearances.

* * *

 

When Phasma saw the idiots hanging out their windows, her mouth curved into a small, secret smile. Perhaps she had nothing to worry about after all.

She gripped the wheel with one hand and tugged the rope downward with the other, blasting the horn. She sucked in a deep breath of the fresh, exhaust-laded air, feeling invigorated.

* * *

 

Despite Rey's relative skill with mechanical vehicles and technology, she was not confident with the controls of the gyrocopter. Unlike steering a bike or car, the gyrocopter dipped with each turn, its direction determined by the tilt of the overhead rotor. There was enough wind interference high above the hot ground to keep her feet busy on the rudder pedals to compensate, so she stayed as low as she could to clear the terrain and stay above firing range. She'd long given up on trying to stay out of sight; in the air, she was a target at any height. Already, she could see that more had joined the chase.

She didn't have enough of a head start on the persistent mercs and Gas Town Trooper Boys to lose them. At least they'd given up on shooting her down; long gone was the occasional pop of gunfire, though their shouts and hoots still carried to her on the wind.

Bibi didn't seem to understand that Rey wasn't fully in control of the autogyro. After a particularly sharp dip to one side whereupon Bibi almost tumbled over the side of the cockpit, Rey reacted fast, grabbing her by the belt of her jumpsuit. After that, Rey one-handedly rigged together the seat straps with a carabiner so that Bibi, a smaller passenger than they were meant for, couldn't slip out of them.

Now, the small girl sat still, catching the wind with her hand and watching the ground fly by them below. Despite her wild appearance, with her tightly curled dark-brown hair in a cloud about her face tangled with sand and bits of ground foliage, and the scuff of dirt on her face (Rey tried to wipe it off for her, but only met fierce resistance), Bibi was well-behaved. She was brave, too.

Rey needed to be brave for her, though. She tried not to let her nervousness show.

The fact was, Rey didn't think she could outrun them. She deliberately sought to pass over rough terrain, but somehow, they managed to find a way to keep up. She didn't dare push the engine too hard; the entire thing seemed constantly on the verge of rattling to pieces the second she increased the throttle. As a different sort of vehicle altogether, she also wasn't confident of the fuel efficiency.

She thought of her own bike with a pang of sadness. She'd built that thing herself, from the ground up. It had been reliable and fast, and with her own modifications, it could outrun, and outmaneuver most hotrods. But this… she looked down at her hands, gripping the gyrocopter's control stick. She looked to the sight of Gas Town refinery shrinking behind her and grinned.

She was flying. She'd broken the bonds of gravity. Up here, everything seemed so small, so insignificant.

She couldn't forget the danger. Behind her and below, multiple trails of dust traced a path on the ground behind the vehicles pursuing her. By now, there were two merc vehicles, three Gas Town cars, and even a pair of Citadel Trooper Boys on their own bike, armed with Thundersticks.

Her eyes moved to the surrounding wastelands. Keeping far back in the distance, other cars emerged as if by magic from behind the dunes, no doubt lured by the sound of the chase. She recognized the spiny silhouettes of the Guavian Buzzards, metal spikes affixed to every exposed surface of their vehicles. They were moving in, poised to take advantage of this chance to pick off a few Gas Town cars or perhaps to get their hands on fresh human meat.

At the edge of Immortan Snoke's influence, the waster gangs ruled the Badlands. The Guavian Buzzards were among the most brutal and well-armed.

This wasn't necessarily a bad thing for Rey and Bibi. Rey had partly expected them, and perhaps even counted on them to fight with the rest of her pursuers. She'd hoped that they might ignore her in favor of greater spoils and distract one another. That hope was dependent on the evenness of the match. She could now see that she had been gravely mistaken. Eight Guavian Buzzard vehicles emerged so far. Rarely had she seen so many of the anarchic raiders at once.

The Trooper Boys and one of the pursuit cars peeled off when they spotted the gang, and headed back to Gas Town. That made four cars against the eight Buzzards. Too many.

So focused was she on what was behind her that she didn't think to look ahead until Bibi started whimpering and trying to get her attention.

Rey looked ahead.

A couple dozen miles south and west, a wall of solid dirt seemed to have risen from nothing until it blocked the sky. A sandstorm, one of the biggest she'd seen in years to appear so huge from such a distance.

Static, visible from this far, crackled inside its near border, arcs of dry lightning half a kilometer in length at least, webbed between the bulges of shifting sand that picked up everything that wasn't well anchored to the ground.

Bibi began to make a low, whimpering sound in her throat. Rey looked over to her, tried to comfort her with a smile.

"Bibi, it'll be okay." But how could she say that? At full force, sandstorms like this could cover dozens of square miles. There would be no refuge from it outside of the cities, or without cover. She'd seen the inside of one once, the way the funnels, as tall as the sky, swept up anything in their path, smashed debris together like a rock grinder. They were unpredictable, and the experience had almost killed her.

But she had also seen how, if one were precise enough, they could be navigated.

The pursuers were getting closer and the Guavian Buzzards were closing in on all of them. She eased the control stick to bring her lower, out of the turbulent winds growing in the upper atmosphere.

Rey saw the harpoon gun, mounted on the back of a Gas Town car below them, seconds before it fired. She jerked the control stick to the side, the gyrocopter dipped and tilted and the harpoon passed through the front of the gyrocopter's nose and latched onto the panel at Rey's feet, barely missing her foot. The Autocopter jerked and dropped a few meters, began to descend. The motor strained, Bibi screamed, snarled, started rocking against the back of the seat as if she meant to escape from the safety belts.

Rey didn't think. She smashed the inside of the panel with her foot, over and over. The autocopter jerked to the side, tethered by the chain. They were losing altitude and the engine whined as it strained against the downward force.

With one more whack, the panel came loose and dropped with the harpoon still attached.

She regained control of the autocopter, and urged the throttle forward at full speed, putting some more distance between her and her pursuers as the wind whistled through the new opening.

"It's okay, Bibi. Stay with me and you'll be okay," Rey said to the girl, reaching for her. "I have an idea."

Bibi didn't seem worried. But still, she grabbed Rey's arm and held it tight. Rey's jaw set as she looked to the horizon where the solid wall of sand and particles devoured the sky and everything that fell within its crackling maw. She adjusted the rudder pedals and tilted the control stick, turning them so that they were headed right for it.

* * *

 

"Get back on your perch, I'm tired of smelling you," Nines said. "I told you we're going to beat the storm. We fang it, just like Phasma said."

Finn's heart pounded in his throat. He thought of the man in the back seat, and the sandstorm in the distance, Gas Town which, while not yet visible with his naked eye, grew closer by the second.

He couldn't put it off any longer.

Finn threw his weight sideways into Nines, pressing his right leg into the accelerator at the same time. The Charger swerved off the asphalt and onto the rocky shoulder, engine roaring as they picked up speed.

"The fuck you doing?" Nines growled, shoving back and struggling to regain control of the wheel and the accelerator.

"I'm taking over," Finn grunted, pushing Nines against the door. With his other hand, he reached for the handle mechanism.

"Cut it out, fucknuts! Phasma's watching!" Nines snarled, baring his yellow grey teeth. His gauntleted fist came out of nowhere, leather and metal knuckles slamming into Finn's temple. The car swerved back onto the road again at the head of the procession as Nines regained control. He locked the accelerator in place and began kicking Finn anywhere he could reach.

"I'm. The. Driver," he said, punctuating each word with another kick. Finn could only try to ward off the blows, and was acutely aware of the forearm-length springblade Nines had stowed in his gauntlet. If he managed to open it, Finn would be gutted like a waste rat.

A shape rose in the rearview.

Before Nines could act on it, someone's hands slammed his skull into the window, cracking the glass and stunning him. He blacked out for a moment, sagging bonelessly in his seat. The car lurched again and Finn grabbed the wheel, leaned over Nines as the guilt rose to a fever pitch inside of him.

"Don't kill him!" Finn shouted suddenly. Poe faltered, took his hands off, a look of confusion on his face.

Nines began to stir. He was just stunned. Finn's sigh of relief was cut short, and he lunged for the door handle, slamming the brakes to reduce their speed.

Suddenly, Nines was weightless. And then he hit the ground rolling at thirty-five miles per hour.

Finn gripped the wheel, his eyes on the body tumbling in the dirt cloud behind the Charger. He watched as a Lancer on the back of the other car scooped down and pulled Nines onboard. Poe squeezed between the front seats and assumed his place in the driver's seat. Finn let him take over.

He didn't know why he stopped Poe from killing Nines. He'd probably regret it later.

* * *

 

"What the hell is going on?" Phasma barked as soon as Datoo's face bobbed into her window.

"One of the Trooper Boys got thrown," he said, his eyes wide as he checked behind him. When he looked back at Phasma, his expression was severe. "Looks like mutiny."

"Are you sure?" she said, disbelief and anger dawning in her. Finn. She looked ahead.

The black Charger had veered back onto Kessel Road a couple of car lengths ahead of them. Fools.

The Trooper Boys in the back of the Bel-Air were checking the one who'd been scooped off the asphalt. The Rev-head was coming out of his daze into a state of rage, one hand on his left lower ribs as he searched wildly for the other car.

"Find out what's happening," Phasma roared. Datoo nodded and motioned for the Bel Air to pull up beside them. Accustomed to the danger of moving about the exterior of cars in motion, he helped heft the scarred Trooper Boy, none the worse for wear, onto the side bumper of the rig. He held on with one hand, still clutching his ribs with the other.

Nines was nearly incoherent with rage as he tried to explain, gesturing wildly at the Charger on the road ahead. Phasma could just make out the silhouette of two figures inside of the swerving vehicle. That was one more than there should have been. And then Nines said something that caught her attention. Something about the War Lord's Bloodbag.

"What Bloodbag?" she demanded, her keen eyes wide and twitching.

"Kylo Erectus's. The Vuvalini driver."

Heat flashed inside of Imperator Phasma's chest and she gripped the wheel tight. She remembered him.

"Let me kill 'im, Phasma," Nines growled through his teeth. With his facial scars and damaged eye, and the angry red abrasions across his chest and the good side of his face, he looked monstrous. "I'll make sure he suffers."

Phasma considered letting him. She would have liked nothing more than to see Nines get retribution. But she shook her head. He was in no shape for this. If she could help it, they'd lose no more than one Trooper today.

"We keep going," she said. Nines began to protest, acting nearly as though he intended to grab her wheel. Datoo shoved Nines out of the way and peered in at her, his jaw clenched.

"Should I signal for backup?" he asked.

Phasma's jaw worked, her eyes flickering to the Charger ahead. She gripped the head of her gear stick. No need to alert the bosses just yet. She shook her head.

"We keep going," she said, her white teeth flashing in a fierce grimace.

* * *

 

Finn could see that Poe's bragging had been completely founded. He was as skilled behind the wheel as though he'd been born there.

"We've gotta get off the road," Finn said, looking to the growing sandstorm, a foreboding backdrop to their defection. "Head west."

Poe shook his head, his eyes flickering between the road ahead and the rearview.

"We'd never make it past the sinking fields. Not in this car."

Finn, unable to stop the kneejerk defensiveness, started to argue about the car's abilities when Poe, a look of abject horror on his face, threw his right arm across Finn's chest and jerked the wheel to the left. Despite his assistance, Finn's body slammed into his door, his face pressed against the scratched window.

The massive tyres of the Finalizer blurred past like a herd of jet-charged elephants, so close that he could feel the vibrations of the truck rattling his brain. And then Ripper bounced off the shoulder and into the rough open ground.

The car rattled and jerked over the coarse terrain and Poe sat as rigid as a pole as he tried to regain control of the car without flying out of his seat. A rock hit the side, more pebbles hit the windshield.

"Keep going," Finn shouted his voice a staccato as his entire body bounced in the seat, gripping the front console with white knuckles. Ahead of them, the sandstorm grew until it filled the sky and everything ahead of them.

"What?!" Poe yelled over the noise, sparing a bewildered look.

"We'll lose them in there." Finn held his eyes for a moment, communicating wordlessly to the driver what he already knew. Poe tightened his jaw and looked ahead once more.

"Can your car handle it?"

Finn's brow tensed, and a look of determination crossed his face.

"We're doing this, Poe!"

Poe's bewilderment gave way to near manic excitement.

"Then let's do it."

* * *

 

Denied the satisfaction of a collision, Phasma's temper boiled inside of her.

"They're heading into the storm!" Datoo hollered from her window.

The Immortan wouldn't be happy to hear that he'd lost a car. Doubtless, he'd have his Boys scouring the desert for whatever was left of it after it hit the storm. But that wasn't Phasma's problem. Her problem was getting the supplies to Gas Town, but now with only one escort car instead of two. The Finalizer was a tank, and even with a half-compliment of six Trooper Boys excluding herself, it was not something to contend with. However, it was not as maneuverable as the smaller vehicles, and that's where the escorts came in.

At least they had the Bel Air.

Suddenly, the car full of screaming Trooper Boys shot ahead. The Bel Air.

She uttered a litany of curses, blasted the horn. Green-ass recruits.

The Bel Air swiped past the Finalizer's cab. The gunner at the harpoon was yelling at the lancer next to him, motioning to the Finalizer, confused. She could see a struggle inside the car as the driver fought with someone else.

Her eyes widened, and suddenly Datoo was in her ear, screaming about the driver from the other car, the one that had been unseated.

Nines was taking control of the other escort vehicle. A white body was tossed from the driver's side door. It wasn't Nines. She tried to swerve the War Rig out of the way, to keep from hitting him. She wasn't fast enough. A barely perceivable thud marked the end of that Boy's life. Silent, she mouthed the word "witness" through clenched teeth, the rage growing in her until every one of her muscles was tense and she could hear a roaring in her ears.

The Bel Air took a sharp turn, and the lancer on the back was thrown into the dirt on the shoulder. Had they both gone rogue?

No, she thought, seeing Nine's fist in the air as he followed the Charger toward the storm. He was kamikrazee for vengeance.

"Boss! What do we do?" Datoo yelled. Phasma's mouth tightened.

She didn't see them yet, but she knew that there were always opportunists waiting for a chance to take down a War Rig. Guavian Buzzards, or the Kanjikiller Gang. The second they saw the Finalizer unguarded, they would move in. In fact, ahead of the storm, she thought she saw the dust trails of their cars already. That was strange. They weren't headed for her.

She made a quick decision.

"Buckle down and signal Starkiller," she said to Datoo. "We're going in."

Imperator Phasma knew as well as any that the Finalizer could withstand the storm. Anyone on the outside of it, however, was risking their own lives. The look in Phasma's eyes, of pure unbridled rage, warded off any protest.

"Buckle up! We're going in!" Datoo hollered to the back, hammering his fist on the roof twice. Phasma pulled her goggles down over her eyes and tugged the bandanna in place over her mouth while behind her she knew the Trooper Boys were hunkering down to weather the storm. Her boys were strong. This wouldn't be the first desert tempest they'd seen.

She eyed the puff of red smoke in the air behind her, and then blasted the horn for good measure.

* * *

 

By the time Hux saw the signal flare from the Finalizer, the Trooper Boys were already in the process of lowering their vehicles to the tarmac.

There was no announcement or rallying speech from the sons of the Immortan. This time, there was only the frantic scramble to ready the War Party and leave as soon as possible. They wouldn't be able to reach the Finalizer before she hit the sandstorm, but they would be damned if they let the Buzzards have it.

Kylo Erectus vaulted into the cab of his command car, a supercharged Fargo Workhorse with tyres that were as tall as he, and took his place standing through the open roof top. Imperator TK took the wheel, and Kylo motioned for the rest of the cars to follow.

Hux couldn't help but feel smug as he mounted, with assistance from Mitaka, the steps into his own car, the Chariot. Smug and annoyed. If it hadn't been for Kylo Erectus's carelessness with the prisoner, none of this would have happened. Of course, he doubted the prisoner had managed to escape on his own. He would have needed help.

And that was why Hux was forced to come along. If one of the Trooper Boys had cost the entire supply run, Hux needed to know everything about the situation when he relayed it to Immortan Snoke. He just hoped that his father recognized who was truly at fault.

Kylo's car shot ahead and the rest of the horde soon followed. A clever Repair Boy and Mitaka hurried to hook up the sacred HAM radio brought from within the Command chamber with due reverence. Its gold-plated sides were emblazoned with the Immortan's sigil, and once it was hooked up to its power source and turned on, all within sight gave the sign of the Order, bowing their heads and backing away.

It was, after all, the vessel for the voice of their god.

Hux would be ready with a full report of what had led up to this, including who was at fault. Barring any further issues, he was certain this would only reinforce his good standing with Immortan Snoke.

Finn didn't think the storm could get any bigger, but the closer they came, the larger it loomed until it was all they could see ahead of them.

"We've got a tail," Poe said through clenched teeth. Finn spun in his seat to see behind them. The Bel Air, bearing only the harpooner in his seat, was coming up fast. And behind that, he was shocked to see the Finalizer following in the dirt trail. What were they doing?

"They're coming after us," Finn said in disbelief. Something wasn't right, however. The Bel Air was missing its lancer.

"I've got a daughter," Poe said. Startled, Finn nearly forgot his train of thought. "Her name's Bibi. She's got dark skin and brown eyes. She's wearing an orange and white flight suit. She's only five."

"Why are you telling me this?" Finn searched the other man's face, somehow looking more handsome for his worry.

Poe gritted his teeth. "In case something happens to me. Snoke is after her."

"She's the one he's been looking for?"

Poe nodded, his eyes returning to the mirror behind them, hands gripping the wheel with white knuckles.

Finn's brow furrowed.

"You're going to make it."

"Listen to me. If I don't, find her. Take her past the western ridge. You'll find an encampment. Tell them who you are, and they'll let you stay."

Finn nodded, though he wasn't sure why Poe would entrust him with this. He was just a Trooper Boy, after all. He wasn't a hero.

"Why does the Immortan want her?" Finn asked. Poe seemed conflicted, his eyes flickering between the danger ahead of them and the danger encroaching from behind. Finally, he decided to answer.

"She's seen a map. A very important map that could lead us to the downfall of the Immortan and his Order."

Finn hadn't been expecting that.

"Like a treasure map?"

No matter what he did, Poe couldn't seem to lose their tail. He checked the turbocharged NOS tank system as he tried to decide how much to tell Finn.

"It leads to the last History Man. His name is Luke, and he has access to tech from the Beforetime. Powerful tech that could save us all. If the Vuvalini can get to him before Snoke, humanity might still have hope."

Finn couldn't imagine what tech would bring the downfall of Immortan Snoke's empire and save the human race, except for perhaps a weapon. If it was a weapon, one that could challenge the Immortan, he could see why he was desperate to find it. Even the threat that Snoke might have a powerful weapon inside Starkiller's purported underground missile silo, it was enough to keep the rest of the wasteland in line behind him.

"Brace yourself!" Poe called. Finn's eyes looked ahead, but the sandstorm was still a mile off. And then something smashed them from behind, slamming Finn back in his seat and nearly into the dashboard, where his head hit his hand instead of the leather-wrapped metal. Dazed and clutching his forehead with a hiss, he looked behind them. The Bel Air, minus its lancer and harpooner, was drawing in to ram them again.

It was Nines! He'd broken protocol for, what, vengeance? Now his former mate's scarred face was twisted in a grimace of rage and cold fear gripped him. It looked like the life spared would not be repaid.

"You okay?" Poe asked, sparing a second to look at Finn as he tried to veer out of the Bel-Air's path. Finn nodded. The dizziness was subsiding. "We're almost there!"

The reminder of their ill-conceived and potentially suicidal plan gave him little comfort.

* * *

 

Rey remembered how the sandstorm had looked before, but she'd assumed that her childhood recollection was a little distorted. But now, back in it, it felt as though she were in a dream. Bibi huddled in her seat and shielded her helmeted head with her arms as the gyrocopter hurtled into the wall of sand and suddenly Rey was fully aware of just how small they were. How breakable.

The particles moved and parted in waves. She could see nothing ahead of them. The craft vibrated and shook, dipped and yawed, and Rey began to feel sick. Breathe, she told herself, in and out. The helmets protected from the worst of the suffocating dust, but she could feel tiny particles of sand find their way between the seams of her clothing. She had to let go of Bibi to grip the steering and fight the wind, but it was impossible to completely control the gyrocopter. The best she could do was control the general trajectory of the craft, keep them mostly upright.

A nagging voice told her that she'd killed them both by entering the storm. The stronger voice silenced it, urged her wordlessly to jerk left. Less than a second later, an object, a shredded frayed black that had once been a tyre, hurtled past them in a cyclone.

Suddenly she could see, in a brief moment of clarity between opposing colossal whirls. The sight took her breath away.

In here, the laws of physics were turned upside down. She couldn't tell the sky from the ground, all was roiling with billowy puffs, moving slowly enough to tell of their colossal scale, they might as well have been inside of a cloud. Air moved like liquid, whirlpools of force lifting and carrying objects far too large and heavy to make sense. Wind buffeted them from every direction, at turns lifting them and making them drop, tilt to the side and list backwards, blind her in opaque sand-colored air and part like diverging waves in an ocean.

To her left and below, a spiked Buzzard moved slowly past, tumbling within a tornado of earth, twisting apart as though a giant were gripping it with both hands and rending it in opposite directions. An arc of lightning ahead nearly hit them, and Rey shook herself out of her daze.

She had this. They would survive this. She navigated more surely now, her heart thudding in her ears, the scream of hundred horsepower winds deafening her. Bibi had one small hand threaded in the fabric of Rey's drape, anchoring it from the winds that wanted it to whip.

Below, closer than she would have liked, she could see a strange procession of vehicles for a brief moment before they were obscured in a swell of sand and she lost sight of everything.

The wind howled and battered, seeking to throw them off course, but Phasma navigated. As big as the Finalizer was, it was safe from the winds, but it also made a large target. She could hear the smattering of smashes and dings as debris struck it from the outside.

She could see, periodically, the cars ahead of her. But between gusts of swirling dirt and rocks, she also knew that they were no longer alone. Spiked cars, the makers of the dust trails she'd seen before, foolhardy enough to have entered and get caught in the gales, were flying around in distant funnels.

Flashes of lightning and explosions peppered the sky, brought light to the swirling death. Ahead, she could barely make out the sight of the Bel Air and the Charger. It looked like they were racing.

Before they could react, a bouncing object the size of half a car hurtled toward them, smashing into the Bel-Air. The Charger swerved out of the path of the Bel-Air, now spinning out with a crushed bonnet, and veered in front of the Finalizer.

She finally got her impact as twisted chunks of steel rained on the windshield before being picked up by the wind. A quick look in her side mirror showed the body of the Charger tumbling behind her. No explosion, but no worry. The storm would take care of them. When she looked ahead, once more, a smug narrowing of her eyes nearly made her miss the surreal sight.

Sporadic flashes of light from different directions illuminated a strange looking vehicle as it hurtled past her and above. She craned forward.

Her eyes met the eyes of a young woman in a helmet, the light illuminating her face through the glass face.

On the woman's other side, she caught a blur of white and orange, a smaller body. And then it was gone. The child, she thought with incredulity. Phasma's brain caught up to what she was doing too late. She hit the cyclone, and the roar of wind slammed into the side of the War Rig like a freight train.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I almost called this chapter Da Rude Sandstorm, but I thought it was a little on the nose.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finn has doubts about seeing his former Trooper boys as enemies. Rey meets an unexpected, and welcome, ally. Bibi hides under a coat.

\------

Finn breathed.

And then he breathed again, this time inhaling until he filled his aching lungs. Until a tickling in his throat made him cough, in great, gasping bursts. Every ache and pain in his body made itself known at once, and he grunted and tried to curl around himself like a pill bug. He couldn’t move, though. Something heavy was on top of him.

Finn’s eyes cracked open and then immediately clenched shut when shards of sand slipped between his lids. He moved to rub his face and his hand met a thick dusting of it. Bright light blinded him and made his pupils ache and he closed his eyes again. What was on him? He pushed.

It was a body.

Finn’s heart leapt into the back of his mouth and suddenly his eyes were open. He pushed himself out from under it, dreading that he might see Poe’s jacket. To his relief, it was just a Guavian Buzzard. Or what was left of him. Finn looked around the desolate landscape, littered with pieces of car, uprooted shrub, and, in some places, the remnants of people.

His Buzzard seemed to be missing a leg and part of his face. One arm was tangled in a chain wrapped around the upper window frame of a car door. The door, and the waster chained to it was what had shielded him from the storm. He squirmed his way out from under it, ready to put some distance between himself and what was already shaping up to be a ripe putrescence. But then his common sense kicked back in.

Wordlessly, Finn picked around the body in search of weapons. He tucked the beretta he found into the back of his pants after checking the cartridge for bullets.

Then he walked a few strides away, bent double, and heaved up whatever remnants of breakfast was still in his body.

It felt like a long time before he was able to catch his breath. He looked around himself again, desperately trying to remember what had happened.

Ripper was going full speed, and far outpacing the Finalizer. But Nines… the flying chunk of car had hit the Bel-Air. Or had it hit Ripper? He was sure he’d been picked up by the winds, but for an eternity all he’d seen was sky and ground spinning, battering his helpless body. The last time he saw Poe was the second before it happened. Where was he now?

Finn started calling his name, but choked off and hesitated when he heard how far his voice carried over the open landscape. His caution was fleeting and soon he was calling for the driver again, mustering all the breath he could gain from his sore lungs.

He began walking, unsure where he was going. His head pounded, and the sun beat down without mercy.

His mouth tasted like dirt and blood, and was so, so dry. He called for Poe, but his voice got swallowed up by the vast emptiness.

Lost, he turned in place, gazing in every direction. He spotted a tangled mess of a car wreck on the far side of sand dunes to the west and headed for it.

The closer he came, the more detail he could make out. Black paint. Chassis gutted, chunks of another car smashed into the bonnet. A flash of red paint on what must have been the roof jolted him into motion. He sprinted full-speed for the remains of Ripper, thinking of nothing but Poe. His own pains faded beneath the pounding of his heart and his gasping breaths. _Please_ , he begged, though he knew no one was listening.

A flash of tan and red leather sent him into a frenzy, ripping the dented and broken door loose from its hinges. It was Poe’s jacket, snagged on the bent steering wheel, but it was empty. His eyes moved to the jagged maw that was once the driver’s side body frame. The door was nowhere to be seen, the seat a few yards away with its stuffing spilling out of the torn leather upholstery. There was no sign of Poe. No blood, no footprints, no clue to tell Finn what had happened, but with the evidence presented to him, he could only fear the worst.

Finn took a breath and filled his lungs to better push down the pain rising in him like a storm swell.

Bibi. He had to find the little girl, somehow. He had to make this right. He needed a car.

A sound echoed over the wastes, three short pops, like gunshot. Or a hammer. Finn held the jacket for a moment. He couldn’t leave it for some waster to find.

So, he slipped it on, clothing his bare upper body against the relentless sun, and headed toward the sound, one hand on the handle of the gun tucked into the back of his pants.

Before long, Finn tugged the jacket collar over his head. And then, because he was sweating so much, he took the sleeves off entirely and draped it over him. The fact that he was losing precious moisture in an environment like this was concerning. One thought drove him forward, and kept his feet moving: the Finalizer was carrying aqua cola in one of its insulated tanks.

“C’mon, Finn. Keep moving. Don’t give in.”

He was muttering to himself again. Didn’t matter. He thought about Poe again. He hoped Poe’s end had at least been quicker than it would have been as a bloodbag and a warlord’s plaything.

When he could nearly make out that the dark specks moving around the tanker were men, Finn crouched low. He picked his way closer using whatever cover he could find. Out here, he stood out against the beige landscape, just like they did, but there was a trail of features that broke up the wide open space. Boulders, spaced few and far between. A piece of wrecked vehicle. A dune. He came closer.

Sounds carrying on the wind, like a voice, made him look behind him. All he could see was flat, sandy sea, peppered with junk and rocks. No one was there. More banging brought his attention back to the fore.

He was close enough to see what they were doing. The Finalizer was perched on the edge of an escarpment. From where Finn stood, the fact that there was even a drop was nearly undetectable. He could see how a sandstorm might make it even harder to stay away from something like that. Even so, the thought that Imperator Phasma had actually made a mistake gave him some satisfaction. She had, after all, plowed right into them from behind, destroyed Ripper, and ruined his chance of escaping on it.

But then there was the fact that if he was going to get to that big rig, he needed to get past the crew. But from his vantage, he could see that there were only three left alive after the encounter with the sandstorm.

He dared to move closer. A rocky lump in the landscape twenty meters away or so gave him the perfect vantage point.

Again, a noise carried to him when the breeze changed direction, but he looked behind and saw nothing except the twisted chassis of a ’87 T-Bird that he’d hidden behind last. He was getting spooked. More concerning was the fact that he was no longer sweating. That was a problem.

“Okay. Okay. Think.” What did he have? The gun, obviously. He checked to see that it was loaded.

His knife, given to him when he was elevated from pup to trooper and got his marks. He’d used it to kill before, but always wasteland gangers or Guavian Buzzards. People who deserved it.

He felt around in his pockets. Tools. A few different sizes of socket wrenches, a pair of bolt cutters. His belts. His lucky comb. An assortment of screws and a toothpick.

He measured up his goal. He could make out Datoo, directing the other two troopers to push, or wedge something under the wheels to keep them from sliding. And there, a flash of silver as Imperator Phasma leaned out the passenger side window in the cab. She shouted something back to them, but the sound was lost in the space between him and the big rig. He watched her get out. She disappeared around the other side.

Finn took his chance. He felt for his gun, and when he could see everyone was turned the other way, he ran for it.

The crew was so engrossed in the activity of freeing the Finalizer from the edge of the drop that they didn’t see him.

One boy was crouched with his back turned by the right rear tyre on the Guzzolene tank. Finn fingered the handgun, but at the last minute, his hand released it and left it where it was. He didn’t recognize the boy from behind, but it could have been any of the boys he’d grown up with, fought along time with, triumphed and shared loss with, and his hand faltered. He could hear Datoo circling around the other side, further from him.

Finn seized the boy from behind with a hand over his mouth and his elbow around his neck and pitched forward. As he struggled to claw Finn’s arm off of him, Finn tightened his arm, squeezing his trachea and the blood flow to his brain. He struggled for a second more and then fell limp and unconscious. Finn released the sleeper hold and felt for a pulse. Upon finding it, he carefully dragged him into the shadow beneath the Guzzolene tank.

The exertion made his head pound. Bone dry air sucked past cracked lips.

“Kato, how’re those connections coming?” Datoo hollered. The second he saw Datoo’s boot come around this side of the tank, Finn grabbed it and twisted, pitching Datoo to the side. The more experienced trooper boy’s reflexes were nearly impeccable. He kicked Finn in the head with his other boot, but Finn recovered quickly and shot forward, pinning his neck.

He scrambled for the bolt cutters, thinking to hit him in the head with them. Datoo started punching him, unable to speak for Finn’s hand clamped around his windpipe. His narrow face was starting to turn red. With a little more pressure, he could break his trachea… but Finn couldn’t do it. Datoo, one of his former teachers, had known Finn since he was a pup. Had given him his first toolkit. Had been indispensable with advice for the young man growing up.

Finn’s hesitation allowed Datoo to jab him in the face, splitting the skin over his cheekbone. Finn cracked his forehead against the older man’s temple. Finn saw stars, and the body in his grip fell limp.

He fell back and released his hold on Datoo, cradling his throbbing skull. At the front of the rig came the banging noise. _Phasma,_ he thought. She was completely unaware of what was happening in the back.

The third crewmember was on the other side of the tank. He called to Phasma to try and move forward. After a moment, the engine roared, the tyres spun and then grabbed ground, and the entire rig lurched forward about a yard, freeing it from where it’d become stuck on the edge of the escarpment.

It also removed the barrier between Finn and the remaining trooper, as well as the unconscious bodies of Datoo and Kato.

The young, white-painted boy’s eyes opened wide, and he sucked in breath to yell, but Finn jumped at him and clocked him on his jaw. He hit the ground hard.

Now Finn’s was nearly paralyzed with the pains of his thirst and physical efforts. Barring brain damage, he’d managed it without killing any of them.

Phasma would be the problem, he couldn’t match her in close combat. His spur-of-the-moment idea to pursue a sort of pacifism was starting to look very foolhardy indeed.

He climbed up the ladder on the back of the Finalizer’s main tank, and crept over the top, keeping his bootfalls as silent as possible on the metal and he picked his way around the mid-length cab -a tacked-on bug chassis.

“Datoo, let’s get out of here,” the Imperator called from the driver’s seat.

Finn perched atop the cab, and with his hand shaking, drew his beretta.

When the door opened, He watched the top of Phasma’s blonde hair emerge in the sunlight.

“Datoo, Kabo? …Mondo?” she called, her voice taking on an edge of apprehension. And then, “ _shit.”_

She moved to go back into the cab where Finn knew she had an arsenal of guns and other weapons, and that’s when Finn chose to cock the hammer on his gun with an ominous click. She froze.

Slowly, fierce blue eyes moved up to where Finn was waiting for her. By the time she saw the barrel pointed at her, his hand was steady.

“Crew’s indisposed,” he said, meeting her gaze without wavering. His heart hammered in his chest. “I’m in charge now, Phasma. The Finalizer is mine. Just walk away. This doesn’t have to get messy.”

“Oh, it’s too late for that,” she said, her voice quivering with barely suppressed rage. “You’re a fool if you think you can get away with this. You can kill me if you want, but they’ll catch up to you. The Sons will _shred_ you. You know they will.”

Finn swallowed. Phasma glanced over her shoulder and Finn followed her eyes, only for a second. He could see them too. A few miles off were the tiny shapes of an approaching Starkiller war party. Finn cursed. He was running out of time.

“All that for some kid?” he asked her, incredulous. His answer was a sly, vicious smile.

“I bet that gun doesn’t even have any bullets,” she said, sounding less enraged and more satisfied. He waved her back, away from the big rig.

“You wanna find out?”

There was a beat, when Finn wasn’t sure whether she was going to make him shoot her, but then, to his surprise, she complied, taking a few measured steps backward. Her hands slowly went up, the metal arm glinting in the sun like a threat in reserve, murder in her eyes.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?” she asked, dropping the aggression in favor of a more steady tone. “Come on, Finn. What’s going through that head of yours? Why’re you doing this, turning against the Order?”

Finn felt a minor tug of guilt in his chest, but he didn’t show it. He met her eyes, scarcely blinking, and without moving the gun from where it was trained on his former boss, he sprang down from the cab to the ground. He landed with a thump that made the bump on his forehead throb where he’d hit Datoo, and straightened out.

“It’s all a lie,” he said, fully seeing her question for the stalling tactic that it was. Maybe because he wanted to stall, too. “Battle’s supposed to make us feel stronger. But when the enemy’s some waster settlers? Women, children? There’s no honor in that. No glory, Phasma. You’re telling me you disagree?”

“Anyone who isn’t with us is against us, trooper. You know this.” Phasma was taking on that tone of voice, the same one she used when teaching a lesson. Inarguable, imperious.  “They had their chance to show loyalty to the Immortan and they chose to defy it. They are what threatens the future, not us.”

She acted like she was going to take a step toward him, but he held the gun out straight, pointed right at her head, and she stopped. She backed up instead. The drop was only about half a yard behind her now. Finn was starting to feel dizzy from dehydration, now. His tongue felt tacky in his mouth, sticking to the inside of his cheeks and the roof of his mouth, and _fuck_ but his head hurt.

“You really think that Snoke’s an immortal prophet of the Order? That he has all the answers?” He shook his head as all the deaths he’d witnessed in his life weighed heavily on his shoulder, deaths of young men like him, half-life trooper boys who died in the night, or in self-sacrifice for the promise of eternal life. “He doesn’t care about any of us. He never did, and neither do you.”

Phasma’s fair face twisted suddenly into a snarl and Finn almost faltered in his aim.

“You ungrateful, blasphemous whelp! I trained you, helped _raise_ you from the little Wretched sprog you were. You didn’t have a future, and I Helped you become one of the best lancers in Snoke’s army. I don’t _care_? How _dare_ you, traitor. I know everything about you and every other Trooper boy under my command.”

She took a step toward him, and Finn, despite his cool, backed up. His finger hovered over the trigger.

“Don’t make me shoot you,” he half-warned, half-pleaded. But her arms were starting to lower. Her human hand tightened into a fist.

“I know, for instance, that you won’t squeeze that trigger. You were a good lancer, but you’ve never been as ruthless as your brothers. Never had what it took to be great.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “It’s too late now. You’re going to die weak and forgotten.”

She lunged for him, his aim faltered, almost as if her words had taken the façade of strength from him.

Her metal fist slammed into his gut. He rolled back, gasping, and without even thinking, he threw the gun at her with all the strength he could muster.

The corner of the butt cracked her in the forehead hard enough to draw blood and Phasma’s eyes rolled back. She stumbled off balance mid-step. He managed a swift kick to her thigh, pitching her backwards and off the edge of the escarpment.

Finn curled around his middle, sucking in laborious breaths through clenched teeth against the piercing pain in his stomach that seemed to radiate outward from his core. Precious water that he didn’t have to spare leaked from his eyes.

It was some minutes before he could bring himself to move again. When he did, the first thing he did was crawl on his knees one-handed to look over the edge. He could see her where she’d slid a few hundred yards down the sandy slope, partially covered in loosened sand, unmoving.

He didn’t know if she was still alive. The fall could have broken her neck, or he could have cracked her skull open. But something told him she’d live. They didn’t call her the bag of nails for nothing.

With painstaking care, he picked himself up again. Poe’s jacket was where he’d left it on the ground behind the rig, and so were the rest of the crew.

He didn’t know how long the others would be out, so he forced himself to drag them one by one over to the edge. He dropped them with precision, in such a way to make them slide, rather than fall, down the sandy incline.

And then he stumbled back to the war rig, his thoughts on the water hose.

=========

When Rey started following the trooper boy to the stranded big rig, she thought that he’d be another obstacle in the way to freedom. It had been difficult to stay out of his sight, too. With Bibi riding gleefully -and blessedly quiet- on her back, there’d been a couple of close calls. The wind direction would change and she had to dodge behind the cover that littered the expanse before her footsteps could advertise her presence.

But to her shock, instead of adding to the crew’s numbers, he began to take them out one by one. Rey had never seen anything like it. Bibi’s hands, fisted in her hair like the mane of some upright beast of burden, kept slipping down to her forehead and Rey had to hold them away to make sure she wasn’t seeing things.

 She wasn’t. One, two, and then all three of the crew in the back went down. He was strong, whoever he was. But she could tell that by the time he climbed up to the roof, he’d taken a bit of a beating in the process. From her angle behind the boulder, she watched him face off with the steel-armed warrior woman.

 _Why isn’t he shooting her?_ She wondered to herself. She slid Bibi off her shoulders. The girl wrapped her arms around Rey’s leg and, without any force behind it, sank her gappy teeth into Rey’s thigh.

“Bibi,” she hissed, half laughing, half scolding. She turned away from the fight long enough to pry the child off of her. Bibi was restless, or anxious. She whimpered in her throat and grabbed the canteen hooked to her belt. Thinking she might be having trouble opening it, Rey reached for it. Bibi let her this time. But the inside of the canteen, the name ‘Poe D’ etched neatly on the side, was bone dry. She was thirsty.

Rey was thirsty, too. She rested a hand on Bibi’s curls in what she intended to be a soothing gesture and glanced back to the big rig, hoping for some sign of what it was carrying.

The warrior woman was gone, but she couldn’t see the man, either. She swallowed dryly and slid the cross body strap of her metal staff over her head. Her fists tightened on it as she tried to figure out what to do next.

Just then, the figure of the man came back around the back and grabbed the jacket he’d left on the ground. Rey saw a flash of red and tan, and then with a mute growl, Bibi was running as hard as her little legs could carry her toward the big rig.

 _“Bibi!”_ Rey hissed in a panic. She ran after the little girl and seized her around her middle just as the man disappeared back around the other side. Rey hauled her back to the boulder. “Don’t run off like that! It’s dangerous, do you understand?!”

Bibi squirmed, whining and growling like an animal, her attention entirely on the semi. Rey had no choice but to hold her in her arms until she stopped squirming. With a petulant groan, Bibi went limp. Rey set her back down on her feet, holding her shoulders.

“Look, one of the most important rules of wasteland survival is never charge in head-on before you know the situation. You’ll have to learn if you want to grow up big and strong. You understand?!”

Bibi glared. Rey took a deep breath and tried again.

“Just stay here, Bibi. _Don’t. Move_.”

Bibi huffed and crossed her arms and looked away. Rey scowled, irritated and frustrated. But then she softened when she thought about what the girl had been through in the last couple of days, and who knows what before that.

She gripped Bibi’s hands. Slowly, Bibi turned her head back to look at Rey. Her round face had lost its petulant, disgruntled look, and now all Rey saw was the sort of weariness one usually only saw in much older people.

“I won’t leave you behind, Bibi. I’ll never leave you behind. I promise. Do you understand that, at least?”

Bibi’s brow tightened and she looked down to the ground so that her curls fell back into her eyes. Rey didn’t know what else to do, so she leaned in and kissed her on her crown. The squared shape of her too-small shoulders rounded and slumped in what Rey could only hope was acceptance.

“I promise I’ll come back for you.”

The little girl huffed. But then she plopped down on her bottom, her chin rested in her hand in a show of discontent, but it seemed like she was going to listen.

Rey stroked her hair one more time before turning back to the big rig. She slid her staff back over her head and gripped it. And then she sprinted full-speed for the big rig.

She stopped when she reached the side of it.

She heard running water, and her throat worked automatically, as if she could feel it on her lips. _Wait for it,_ she told herself. She couldn’t forgo reason for a drink, no matter how dry her mouth was. And it was dry. Ever since the emergency landing by a boulder that had rendered the autogiro unusable, Rey found herself fixating on the water she’d left behind in Gas Town.

She readied her staff, and then she charged around the big rig to face whomever was on the other side.

And then she skidded to a halt.

Water, shining like gold in the sunlight cascaded in a crystalline sheet down the bare upper body of a muscular, brown-skinned young man. The same man who’d taken out the crew.

Rey was aware that her mouth was gaping, but she could do nothing to stop it. His body, broad back turned to her, glistened and shone with moist radiance beneath the gushing water. His muscles rippled under his skin, flexed at his waist as he held the nozzle over his head so that the water poured onto his scalp and upturned face.

Her lips worked, almost mimicking the way he guzzled the clear fluid. With his eyes closed, he turned toward her, oblivious and to all appearances completely consumed by the water hitting his skin and cascading off in glassy sheets that left the parched ground darker where it landed.

She didn’t think she’d ever seen anything, or anyone, so beautiful in her life.

His eyes opened.

He dropped the hose and with the pressure released, the valve on the nozzle closed, cutting off the water flow. His eyes went wide and his mouth gibbered soundlessly, as if he’d been caught in the middle of a crime.

For a moment, they just gaped at one another. He looked at stunned and dumbfounded by her as she was by him. Belatedly, she remembered why she was there.

She gripped her staff in a ready position and slid her feet apart to stabilize her stance.

“Don’t move,” she blurted, her face burning bright red. He shook his head and raised his hands, but his eyes darted to the gun on the ground, and then he noticed she saw him look.

“Wait-“ he started, but Rey ignored him. She darted for it at the same time that he dove for it, but he got to it first. Instead of grabbing it, he sent it skittering back over the edge of the drop.

Robbed of the gun, Rey smashed the staff into his back, knocking him flat. She jumped on him and gripped his torso between her thighs, but he managed to twist around face up. They grappled over the staff. She struggled against him as tried to pull it out of her hands. Then he flipped, rolling them so that her back hit the dirt.

Her legs spun, preventing him from pinning her with his greater size, and landed a good whack on his strong, square jaw with her fist. He sprawled backwards and off of her. The moment she had an opening, she somersaulted back and rolled into a crouch, panting.

He leaned back on one arm, panting and holding the side of his face with one hand.

“ _Wait!_ ” he gasped.

A sound behind them made them both look.

A metal arm was curling over the edge of the escarpment, and to Rey’s horror, a blond, dusty head rose up behind it. The warrior woman, her face pink with exertion and streaked with sand was snarling as she pulled herself up. Her other arm, human, emerged, the pistol in her hand. Without waiting until she was up all the way, she pointed it at Rey and squeezed the trigger.

There was an explosion and a yelp and Rey’s entire body tensed. The pain never came. She opened her eyes. A few feet to the side of where the woman had been was a pitted hole in the ground. She didn’t understand what happened until-

“What the- a kid with a shotgun!” It was the man. Rey turned to see what he was talking about and followed his bewildered look toward the cab of the big rig.

Bibi, her face screwed up in a look of intense discomfort, one hand clapped over her ear, was hanging out the driver’s side window. She had a double barreled shotgun, comically huge in her tiny, tenacious grip. The hand over her ear grabbed the gun and managed to haul it up enough to point it in their general direction. She’d only fired one of the barrels, which meant that there was another shot left.

“ _Bibi!”_ Rey shrieked, horrified, already half-running toward her. “I told you to wait for me!”

“Bibi?” the man choked out.

The child growled, completely ignoring Rey. She was looking at the man with savage glee. She didn’t have a good hold on the shotgun, though, and it kept swaying between them. Rey skidded to a halt mid-stride, her hands in the air.

“Put it down, Bibi,” she said with as much calm as she could muster. Bibi cackled. “ _Put. It. Down._ ”

“Hold on, hold on… did you say Bibi?” he asked again. Rey ignored him and fixed Bibi with her most serious look.

“Bibi, I’m going to count to three. One…”

Bibi steadied her hold on it, but it was clear the child had no idea what she was doing. The man was looking back and forth frantically between them.

“Two…”

Before she could count to one, Bibi’s hand slipped and she lost her balance. She tipped forward out the open window, the shotgun dangling. Rey vaulted forward and caught her, landing on the ground in a pile. Bibi snarled and growled, snapping her teeth as Rey tried to wrestle the gun out of her tiny hands.

“Stoppit Bibi! This is _dangerous_!!” Rey grated, finally jerking the gun out of Bibi’s grasping hands and holding it away from her. Still, the girl reached for it. Rey held her back with the other arm. “You could’ve hurt yourself! I told you to wait behind the rock!”

Before Rey could react, the shotgun was plucked from her hand. Bibi seemed to understand that this was serious and stopped fighting. Cold certainty of death sank in Rey’s stomach like a lead weight.

She turned slowly, still gripping Bibi, to look at the man. He was standing there, gun pointed to the sky, looking for all the world like he had no idea what to do. His other hand was raised in a gesture of peace.

“Now just hold on a minute!” he shouted, his brows raised in an almost comical expression of bewilderment.

Bibi’s large brown eyes were narrowed, honed in on him like a shark on spilled blood.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, panting. “I know Poe!”

Rey had no idea what he was saying, but with one arm wrapped around Bibi, her other hand began to creep toward the dagger she had strapped to her belt. A whimper gave her pause. Bibi’s look of mindless fury had melted, leaving a wide-eyed look of confusion in it’s wake, enough to make Rey stop what she was doing.

“What?”

As if he just remembered that he had it, the man tossed the gun away from him. It landed far out of his reach with a heavy clatter.

“Poe, the Vuvalini driver,” the man said, as though he couldn’t get the words out fast enough. “I helped him escape Starkiller Citadel. He was looking for his little girl Bibi. A little girl in an orange and white jumpsuit.”

Rey’s hand faltered on the handle of her knife and she glanced at Bibi. The little girl’s lower lip protruded, quivering, and her eyes shone. Rey hadn’t seen that look on her face before, but it twisted her gut like a punch. She remembered where she knew the name. It had been scrawled on the canteen. She thought of the curly-haired stick figure that Bibi had drawn.

“Are you with the Resistance?” she asked the man with measured words, taking a chance to push herself into a more upright position. She didn’t let go of Bibi yet.

At first, the blank look on his face seemed answer enough, but then he started nodding, almost frantic.

“Yes! I _am_ with the Resistance. He… wanted me to find her. She needs to get to her people. She knows something really important.”

Rey wasn’t sure she believed him, but there was the shotgun laying on the ground. And something about the earnest look on his face, now streaked with dirt that clung to the moisture, told her that he wasn’t lying.

Slowly, she stood up and released her hold on Bibi, who immediately went to the tan and red jacket where it’d been hung on one of the spikes protruding from the side of the rig. She buried her face in it. Rey turned back to the shirtless man and looked him over. His skin was peppered with darker bruises and his jaw was swelling where she’d kicked him.

“What happened to him?” she asked, lowering her voice. “To the driver.”

His face fell.

“He… didn’t make it,” he answered just above a whisper. Both of them looked at Bibi at once. She’d managed to pull the jacket onto herself and was sitting on the ground beneath it like a tent. It sounded like she was humming to herself, a tuneless self-soothing kind of sound.

The man stepped toward her and touched Rey’s arm.

“We have to get out of here,” he said, pointing to the horizon. Rey followed his gesture with her eyes, shrugging out from under his touch compulsively. She’d been hearing a sound for some time, but had assumed it was her own pulse in her ears. She could now see that it was a fast approaching war party and what sounded, strangely, like music. “Snoke’s sons are after her. He wants something she’s seen. A map.”

Rey knew immediately what he was talking about. It could only be the thing Bibi had been drawing over and over, a perfect copy each time. She thought of the Corona poster folded into her back pocket.

“I’ve seen it… what is it?”

“I’ll tell you about it when we get moving. There’s no time to waste. We need to get her to safety. East, beyond the mountains, where her people are.”

Rey was still hesitant, unsure. Everything was happening so quickly there was barely any time to think.

“Can I trust you?” she asked him with stark bluntness, studying his face.

His striking brows tightened in a look of earnest determination. He then nodded and held out his hand.

“My name is Finn.”

Rey stared at his hand as if it were an alien creature for before shaking it. His broad palm, strong yet somehow soft, gripped her hand back.

“Rey.”

And then his face split into a wide, bright smile and Rey forgot her words for a minute. Before she knew it, she was smiling too. They had a ride!

“Come on, Bibi!” she said, helping the little girl to her feet. An attempt to pull the jacket off of her resulted in a brief tug of war before Rey relented and let her keep it. She lifted Bibi into the cab in front of her. As an afterthought, the man, Finn, ran back and grabbed the shotgun off the floor and passed it to Rey before climbing in after her. When Rey accepted it, she couldn’t help but stare at him in curiosity. It seemed that he would be a good enough ally, for now.

He sat in the driver’s seat staring blankly at the wheel.

“What are you waiting for, go!” Rey urged.

His fingers flexed and slid on the wheel. He looked a bit lost.

“Uhm… there’s a kill sequence in all of these big rigs. If it’s not put in right, it’ll lock up the engine.”

Rey, flustered, shoved him aside, squishing him into the door, which he took with a passive grunt. She reached under the steering column, feeling the underside of the console with her hands until she found what he was talking about: a series of switches and buttons. She sat back, a look of grim concentration on her face.

“Can you do anything about it, or…?” His voice held a shade of doubt, and nerves.

“Maybe. Yeah, I think so. Unkar’s done something like this before to keep his own cars from being used by rival gangs.”

She reached over him and opened the door. He tumbled out, barely managing to land on his feet. She slid out after him with considerably more grace.

“Bibi, don’t touch anything,” she said to the jacket-covered lump on the seat. She felt a brief pang of guilt for the little girl. Did she understand that her dad wasn’t coming back?

Rey didn’t know how to even begin to deal with that. So she didn’t. Instead, she walked around to the bonnet and popped open one of multiple hinged covers that gave access to the interior engine.

While Rey felt around under the bonnet, her arm inserted up to the shoulder, Finn kept glancing behind them to the approaching war party in silent unease. It was making her nervous.

“What’s this map lead to, anyway?” she asked him, both out of curiosity and in a hope to distract him. She briefly thought about the folded up Corona poster in her back pocket, the map scrawled on the back, and then forgot about it again, distracted by the bizarre situation she was in.

“Someone named Luke. He’s supposed to be-“

“Luke Skywalker? The History man?” she interrupted, her attention fast on him now. She found a small bundle of wires feeding into a box, tacked onto the engine.

Finn stuttered, surprised.

“How do you know about him?”

Rey, too excited now to be as guarded, felt as if some weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She counted the wires and then, with a small penknife, severed the second and fourth.

“I heard stories when I was a kid. All about how he was trying to save the world from itself. But I thought he was long dead. Or a myth.”

“Immortan Snoke doesn’t seem to think so. His sons will do anything to find out where he is. And you _don’t_ want to get caught by them, believe me.”

Rey closed the bonnet and motioned for him to get back in the cab ahead of her. She noted that he seemed distant, troubled, and she wondered what horrors he’d endured fighting against the Trooper boy army. He didn’t need to tell her twice that they were vicious animals.

“Let’s get out of here, then.”

The engine roared to life, and Rey floored it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was having trouble writing Finn as someone who would kill his former allies in cold blood. This is one thing that always bothered me in TFA. I get why he had to, but he didn't seem to show any hesitation or remorse, and it just doesn't seem to fit with my idea of him, especially in this setting. Trooper boys bond with their fellows, are raised to think of them as part of their pack. Good thing he has Rey, though, she has no problem with it.


End file.
